For Hong Kong journalists, this week's sentencing of pro-democracy newspaper boss Jimmy Lai cements a climate of fear and self-censorship in the years since Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law.

"There will not be another Apple Daily, nobody dares to copy what it did," journalist and former press union chief Ronson Chan said of Lai's defunct tabloid, which exposed government scandals and ran scathing political commentary.

On Monday, a court handed the 78-year-old tycoon a 20-year prison term and issued sentences against six other former Apple Daily executives, all convicted under the national security law imposed in 2020 after huge pro-democracy protests.

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