Hong Kong publishing tycoon Jimmy Lai, an outspoken critic of Beijing, has stepped down as editor-in-chief of the Apple Daily after being arrested for refusing to leave a key pro democracy protest site in the centre of the city.

The media magnate's resignation was reported on Friday via a video clip on the publication's website. Lai's company Next Media Ltd also confirmed that he had been detained.

Lai's role as the main financial patron of the pro-democracy movement since Hong Kong's 1997 handover to Communist Party rulers in China has come under scrutiny. In September Lai visited the territory's anti-corruption agency on Wednesday, after a recent raid on his home.

Police cleared the main protest site in near the Central business district and reopened the multi-lane highway by Thursday night, ending one of the most serious challenges to China's authority since the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations and bloody crackdown in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

(dna)