Yeung Ching-kee is the lead editorial writer of Apple Daily, a subsidiary of the media company Next Digital Limited from 1995 to 2021. Yeung immigrated from China to Hong Kong in 1990s. Yeung started to write for the paper under penname “Li Ping” as the China team’s lead.

Yeung was arrested on June 23, 2021 in Tseung Kwan O on suspicion of “colluding with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security,” a crime under Hong Kong’s national security law. [1]

Just a week prior to this, on June 16, 2021, Hong Kong Police arrested five Apple Daily executives. 500 police officers raided Next Digital’s headquarters with a search warrant. Police searched news materials and evidence for a suspected violation of the National Security Law. Three of them, Chan Pui Man, Royston Chow, and Cheung Chi-wai were released on bail on June 18, after 40 hours of detention.

Yeung and Fung were released on bail on June 25 and 29, respectively. But on July 21, police revoked the bails and rearrested all five executives that had been released on bail. They also arrested Apple Daily’s Executive Editor-in-Chief Lam Man-chung on the same day. [2]

Prosecutors accused Founder of Next Digital and Apple Daily Jimmy Lai, the six executives, and three Next Digital subsidiaries––Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printing Limited, and AD Internet Limited––of endangering national security by engaging with foreign countries, institutions, organizations, or individuals overseas on sanction and other hostile activities against Hong Kong or China.

On Nov. 22, 2022, the six pled guilty to the collusion charge. Prosecutors agreed not to pursue the sedition charge, however the charge remains on the court file indefinitely. Mitigation submissions and sentencing of the six will be handled after Lai’s trial.