– having regard to Rule 144(5) and 132(4) of its Rules of Procedure, A. whereas the promotion of and respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law should remain at the centre of the long-standing relationship between the EU and China, in line with the EU’s commitment to upholding these values in its external action and China’s expressed interest in adhering to them in its own development and international cooperation; B. whereas on 17 June 2021, 500 Hong Kong armed police raided the offices of the largest pro-opposition newspaper, Apple Daily, forcing journalists to leave the newsroom, and sifted through reporters’ computers, phones and journalistic material, in the first case in which authorities have cited media articles as potentially violating the Hong Kong National Security Law (NSL); whereas five of the paper’s senior executives and editors were arrested, including Editor-in-Chief Ryan Law, Chief Executive Cheung Kim-hung, Chief Operating Officer Royston Chow, Associate Publisher Chan Puiman and Director of Apple Daily Digital Cheung Chi-wai; C. whereas, according to a Hong Kong police spokesperson, the newspaper executives and editors were arrested for their role in the publication of more than 30 articles calling on foreign countries to impose sanctions in relation to the NSL; whereas such calls were considered by the Hong Kong authorities as collusion with foreign countries endangering national security; D. whereas on 23 June 2021, police also arrested Apple Daily’s China Beat editorial writer Yeung Ching-kee (also known as Li Ping) and also charged him with ‘conspiracy to collude with foreign forces’, and former senior editorial writer at Apple Daily Fung Waikwong (also known as Lo Fung) was arrested on 27 June 2021 for the same offence; E. whereas, following the freeze of all its assets (around EUR 2 million) by the Hong Kong authorities on the basis of the NSL, Apple Daily was forced to definitively close on 24 June 2021 after 26 years; whereas more than 800 Apple Daily staff have lost their job and are unlikely to be re-employed in Hong Kong; F. whereas the founder of Apple Daily, Jimmy Lai, is serving 20 months in jail for his involvement in the 2019 protest movement and faces additional charges under the NSL that carry a possible life sentence; whereas Apple Daily had always been an open and critical voice vis-à-vis the mainland and Hong Kong’s leadership and was the only Chinese-language newspaper in Hong Kong that was free from the Chinese Government’s control; G. whereas the NSL allowed one single official, namely the Hong Kong Secretary for Security, to freeze all the assets of Apple Daily, without a formal charge or a fair trial, simply based on claims of violations of the NSL; whereas such a procedure could be applied to any publicly traded entity or to any company simply doing business in Hong Kong; H. whereas 30 June 2021 marked the first anniversary of the entry into force of the NSL; whereas the authorities had announced that the law would only target an ‘extreme minority’ threatening public security; whereas, however, over the course of one year, the law was applied to completely dismantle Hong Kong’s free society on almost all fronts, based on an array of such vaguely defined charges as ‘subversion’, ‘secession’ and