Last August hundreds of Hong Kong police raided Apple Daily, the city’s only pro-democracy newspaper. Founder Jimmy Lai was arrested and accused of vague crimes of collusion with foreign adversaries under the then-new national security law. Lai has been in prison ever since, convicted of participating in two pro-democracy protests in 2019. Then last month the government froze his assets.

Last week the crackdown on Apple Daily escalated. Police once again raided the paper’s offices and this time arresting the top five editors over what it claimed were 30 articles that were part of a foreign conspiracy. The paper responded by printing 500,000 copies on the following day featuring the five arrested editors on the front page:

Just bumped into a neighbour I’ve never met before. She bought 5 copies of @appledaily_hk this morning. She gave me one. She started crying when talking about the changes here. pic.twitter.com/VB1LQ1Ti0W

— Danny Vincent (@dannydvincent) June 18, 2021

But now it’s looking like the paper’s days are numbered thanks to the government’s freezing of funds:

The people who run Hong Kong’s last pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, will know by the end of this week if it will be forced to cease operations after 26 years…

Starved of cash because of a government freeze on its $2.3 million in assets, Apple Daily reported on its own potential demise late on Monday after the board of directors for its parent company, Next Digital, met to strategize about the future.

The paper said its board had sent a letter to Hong Kong’s Security Bureau requesting its assets be unfrozen in order to pay the salaries of its nearly 1,300 staffers by the end of this month. If denied, Apple Daily said it could stop updating its website as soon as Saturday morning.

CBS correspondent Ramy Inocencio was in the building today and says he’s hearing that this is all but a done deal. Unless the government decided to take its boot off Apple Daily’s neck in the next few days, there won’t be a pro-democracy paper in Hong Kong next week. Indeed, there are already people clearing out their desks.

Inside #HongKong’s Apple Daily. 🍎 Waiting in the lobby to interview employees. Here’s what it feels like. Apple Daily is the last pro-democracy newspaper here. By this weekend it could be no more. @CBSNews is here. 🇭🇰 My full walk and talk on IG: https://t.co/gcVj9BNZpx pic.twitter.com/MRFMJVBxFr

— Ramy Inocencio 英若明 (@RamyInocencio) June 21, 2021

None of this is really a surprise. In fact, we all saw this coming more than a year ago. Still, it’s pretty shocking to see it play out with police jailing anyone who publishes a critical word about Chinese communism. Apple Daily published an editorial warning about the new “red line.”

It is becoming very apparent that the Hong Kong national security law overrides local laws that protect people’s freedom and rights. Even news reports and commentaries that are based on facts could be regarded by the enforcement agencies to be treading the red line, and therefore lead to investigations, prosecutions, arrests, and charges. Once under prosecution, news workers are almost left with no defense or protection, and must face a prolonged process of investigations and prosecutions, during which one could be detained for a long time and loses freedom. This prospect poses an enormous psychological threat to professional journalists, causing many to be daunted when interviewing and reporting to avoid sensitive topics and the mention of opposing voices and dissidents.

As for news commentary, the stakes are even higher. Since fair or fact-based commentaries cannot be used as effective defenses, the pressure on commentators to self-censor will grow, causing many to protect themselves by consciously adopting the official narratives. Once we reach this stage, Hong Kong’s existing room for pluralistic and free speech will disappear very quickly, leaving behind nothing but a blank piece of paper known as the Basic Law’s guarantee of the freedom of speech.

There’s not much we can do about the snuffing out of freedom in Hong Kong but watch. What’s worrisome is that China isn’t done. They clearly hope to see a repeat performance in Taiwan where another 23 million people are currently in danger of having their freedoms snuffed out by communist tyranny.