Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai was denied bail on Thursday on a charge of fraud related to the lease of a building that houses Apple Daily, his anti-government tabloid.
Hong Kong authorities have intensified a crackdown on key opposition figures since Beijing circumvented the territory's legislature and imposed sweeping national security legislation on the global financial center on June 30.
While Lai's fraud charge did not fall under the national security law, it marks the latest crackdown on pro-democracy figures in the former British colony, which was handed back to Beijing in 1997 with a promise of keeping its free-wheeling way of life for 50 years.