Chan Pui-man, former associate publisher of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, is serving a seven-year prison sentence for conspiracy to collude with foreign forces.
She was sentenced on February 9, 2026, after pleading guilty in 2022 in return for clemency on another charge.
Chan was one of six Apple Daily editors and executives sentenced alongside the newspaper’s founder and publisher Jimmy Lai, who was jailed for 20 years, in Hong Kong’s largest ever media trial.
Apple Daily, a subsidiary of the media company Next Digital Limited, was published from 1995 until it was forced to close in 2021. When police arrested Chan, Lai, and the other executives they cited dozens of articles published by Apple Daily, mostly commentary and opinion pieces calling for foreign sanctions, as evidence.
Chan was first arrested on June 16, 2021, at her home before being released on bail two days later. She was imprisoned again on July 21, 2021, where she has been held ever since.
Between February and March 2024, Chan testified against her former boss Lai at the latter’s national security trial.
Chan’s husband, former Stand News editor Chung Pui-kuen, was separately jailed for 21 months in September 2024 in another sedition trial.
The arrests of Chan, Lai, and other executives came amid authorities’ crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement, which targeted many media figures and activists critical of the government and the Chinese Communist Party.
In response to a request for comment, Hong Kong’s Security Bureau referred CPJ to a statement that quoted the city’s leader, John Lee, saying the court has already handed down “severe sentences” for the defendants in accordance with the law, “manifesting that the rule of law is upheld and justice is done.”