* EU and UK scold China over newspaper raid
* HK's Apple Daily raided by 500 officers
* Newspaper executives arrested at dawn
* Raid is latest blow to tabloid owner Jimmy Lai
(Adds details, edits headline and lead)
By Guy Faulconbridge and Robin Emmott
LONDON/BRUSSELS, June 17 (Reuters) - The European Union and
Britain on Thursday said a police raid on Hong Kong's
pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily showed that China was using a
new national security law to crack down on dissent and silence
the media rather than deal with public security.
Just days after the world's richest democracies scolded
China over human rights at a Group of Seven summit and the NATO
military alliance warned Beijing over its ambitions, Hong Kong
police made dawn arrests of Apple Daily newspaper executives.
Five hundred Hong Kong police officers sifted through
reporters' computers and notebooks at the daily, the first case
in which authorities have cited media articles as potentially
violating the national security law.
The raid "further demonstrates how the national security law
is being used to stifle media freedom and freedom of expression
in Hong Kong," EU spokesperson Nabila Massrali said in a
statement.
"It is essential that all the existing rights and freedoms
of Hong Kong residents are fully protected, including freedom of
the press and of publication."
Britain's Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab also said the raid
was aimed at silencing dissent.
"Freedom of the press is one of the rights China promised to
protect in the Joint Declaration and should be respected," Raab
said, referring to an accord guaranteeing autonomy for Hong Kong
when London handed over its colony to China in 1997.
Hong Kong Security Secretary John Lee described the newsroom
as a "crime scene" and said the operation was aimed at those who
use reporting as a "tool to endanger" national security.
Western leaders say Chinese President Xi Jinping, 68, is
cracking down on Hong Kong, which Britain handed back to China
in 1997, and Western security officials have expressed
apprehension about Xi's next target.
Britain and its allies say the national security law
breaches the "one country, two systems" principle enshrined in
the 1984 Sino-British treaty that guaranteed Hong Kong's
autonomy.
China has repeatedly warned Britain and the United States to
stop meddling in its affairs and says many Western powers are
gripped by an "imperial hangover" after years of humiliating
China during the 19th and 20th Centuries.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Robin Emmott
Editing by Alistair Smout and Peter Graff)
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