Hong Kong’s Most Brazen Arrest Yet

As Hong Kong began to absorb the gravity of a new national-security law forced upon it by Beijing, Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, told a reporter that the city’s residents needn’t worry. The city’s Basic Law, its mini-constitution, she said last month, “clearly stated” that the “people of Hong Kong should be able to continue to enjoy the freedom of speech, freedom of press, of publications, protest, assembly and so on.” Lam was reiterating what she had told the United Nations a day earlier.

But today, Jimmy Lai, a media tycoon who runs the popular prodemocracy newspaper , was and perp-walked by police through his own newsroom, his hands handcuffed behind his back as dozens of officers swarmed the building, rummaging through files and reporters’ desks. Lai was detained, along with at least nine others, on allegations that he had breached the national-security law by colluding with foreign forces, police said. The charge carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.