There’s a new weapon in the fight against press freedom and Occupy Central – soy sauce! Knife-wielding masked men poured barrels of the stuff over freshly printed copies of anti-Beijing newspaper Apple Daily in three simultaneous attacks yesterday.
This weird little act of indignation, carried out at distributions centres in Central, Hung Hom and Cheung Sha Wan, came in the early hours of yesterday morning following more than a week of blockades at Apple’s headquarters that have been ongoing despite a restraining order from Hong Kong’s High Court.
Around 15,200 copies of Apple Daily were made all brown and salty along with 20,000 copies of rival free sheet Headline Daily…but no one seems to care much about that. According to the SCMP, however, Apple Daily still managed to sell 210,000 un-marinaded copies.
Police are seeking 14 suspects and say they are treating the case as criminal damage and intimidation. Apple Daily, owned by outspoken Occupy supporter Jimmy Lai, has fallen victim to a number of reported attacks in recent months, including advertising boycotts and online hacking.
The saucy assault is just the latest in a string of bizarre anti-Occupy offensives that have seen Apple Daily staff forced to form human chains to get the papers out of the building. Anti-Occupy protestors carried a paper coffin to the Apple Daily headquarters on Wednesday before performing some kind of mock funeral ceremony and splashing water on a young female reporter. WTF?
It may all be totally weird and make no sense at all, but you’ve got to applaud their originality.
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