Yeung Ching-kee, lead editorial writer of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, is serving seven years and three months for conspiracy to collude with foreign forces.
He was sentenced on February 9, 2026, after pleading guilty in 2022 in return for clemency on another charge.
Yeung 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 Yeung, 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.
Yeung, who wrote under the pen name Li Ping, was arrested on June 23, 2021, before being released on bail two days later. He was imprisoned again on July 21, 2021, where he has been held ever since.
Between February and March 2024, Yeung testified against his former boss Lai at the latter’s national security trial.
The arrests of Yeung, 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.”