Last Monday U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said to be “deeply troubled” by the news of the Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s arrest “under Hong Kongโs draconian National Security Law”.

Lai is at the moment the highest-profile among the arrests on Monday under the new national security law over suspected collusion with foreign forces. Around 200 police officers participated to break in the offices of Apple Daily newspaper he owns.
“Further proof that the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has eviscerated Hong Kongโs freedoms and eroded the rights of its people,” Pompeo said in a Twitter post.
White House national security adviser Robert OโBrien expressed the same concerns in a different statement: “we are deeply troubled by the arrest of Jimmy Lai”.
According to O’Brien the arrest of Lai and of others has to be intended as an effort to intimidate pro-democracy opposition and independent media.
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