The morning after: Apple Daily supporters brave drizzling rain, express despair while snapping up final edition
- The tabloid-style newspaper, a fixture for 26 years, ended operations at midnight following a series of arrests made under the national security law
- ‘I feel powerless … There’s nothing that Hongkongers can do about it’, one woman says while buying five copies at a Mong Kok news-stand
Hongkongers were still flocking to purchase copies of the 26-year-old Apple Daily’s final edition as residents made their way to work on Thursday morning, with many supporters emotional as they queued amid drizzling rain.
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Hong Kong tabloid Apple Daily ceases operations after top executives arrested, assets frozen
At around 8am, at a Mong Kok news-stand at the junction of Argyle Street and Sai Yeung Choi Street, the owner, surnamed Ng, told the Post she had ordered as many as 10,000 copies of the final edition and had already sold more than 1,000 as of 8am.
Supporters kept arriving, and queued patiently despite the rain as Ng and her staff busily collected HK$10 and HK$20 bills – with many purchasing more than one copy of the HK$10 paper. One Post staff member saw the final edition being sold for HK$15 at another location. Social media reports suggested that was happening elsewhere.
“Thank you! Just take it yourself!” said a staff member, her hands full of cash.
Headlined “Hongkongers reluctantly bid farewell under the rain: ‘We support Apple Daily’”, the paper said it printed 1 million copies of the final edition.
