International rights groups on Thursday slammed Hong Kong authorities after local police mobilized over 500 officers in a raid on the headquarters of local newspaper Apple Daily. The raid resulted in the arrest of five directors of the newspaper under the Beijing’s draconian national security law. They were accused of violating Article 29 of the law, which bans “collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security.“ The collusion charge carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Among those arrested were the paper’s editor-in-chief Ryan Law and associate publisher Chan Pui-man. Cheung Kim-hung and Royston Chow, chief executive officer and chief operating officer of the paper’s publishing firm Next Digital, were also arrested. It marks the second raid at the paper’s headquarters in less than a year, after 200 Hong Kong police officers stormed the newsroom in August last year a month after the national security …