Hundreds of Hongkongers queue around the block after midnight in the city's Mongkok district to get a chance of purchasing a copy of the last-ever edition of the pro-democracy newspaper.

The footage was filmed after midnight on Thursday (June 24) local time.

The paper decided to stop publishing after seeing several of its journalists arrested under the national security law and having its assets frozen.

The 26-year-old newspaper is majority-owned by jailed Beijing critic Jimmy Lai.

Sharron Fast, a journalism lecturer at the University of Hong Kong, told the Wall Street Journal: “The era of free political speech as we have long known it is gone.”

As the pro-democracy tabloid, Apple Daily announced that it was ceasing the publication of its printed edition, hundreds of Hongkongers started queuing in Mongkok to get a chance of purchasing a copy of the beleaguered paper. The paper decided to stop publishing after seeing several of its journalists arrested under the national security law and having its assets frozen.