You could get arrested (rightfully and not) in most of the world for publishing a myriad of things while still calling yourself "pro democracy" (see jan. 6 protests in the US)
I just wanted to know what he was actually saying to motivate this arrest....
They were definitely not, you've got to be shitting me. They wanted their glorious Cheeto Man to still be president after he lost a democratic election
They also did a bit more than speech and assembly, if it were just that we wouldn't be imprisoning them. It doesn't matter what you believe, if you shoot your friend because you think he's a zombie and then he turns out not to be, that's still a crime
The arrest itself was actually "motivated" by what they referred to as unauthorised assembly during the pro-democracy protests. This 73 year old man went somewhere he shouldn't have, and clearly threatened the mighty CCP enough to warrant 20 months in prison in the process. Additional charges up to life are being stacked on top following from the "security law" meant to silence pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong, but as far as I know these charges have not been made public. His newspaper was published daily though, so the nature of his crime was quite public if you're really interested.
Still nothing about what prompted the authorities over there to deem it as a national security threat, just vague mentions of a national security law while admitting criticising the government is not actually forbidden if you don't abuse it. Jan. 6 protesters in the US were "pro-democracy" too, and so are both sides in the ukranian war. What did he actually say in those publications that prompted this arrest?
Am I just insane for to know a key fact about it before making my judgement of what happened?
Authoritarians often give vague or even contradictory justifications for arresting people. Apple Daily was promoting democracy in Hong Kong which was enough for him to be made an example of.
Democracy is a vague word that can mean different things. Both US and China call themselves democracies. Tell me what those justifications actually are and I can judge for myself instead of just believing whatever I'm told.
They didn't need justifications, at least not specific ones. There's a very distinct implication here that China vaguely found this man's pro-democracy speech and assembly dangerous to the establishment and that was enough