One of two independent newspapers in Hong Kong was attacked by arsonists early Tuesday in what some are calling “an assault to the basic function of a democracy.”

Surveillance video of the incident shows four masked intruders barged into a warehouse facility in the Tsuen Wan area that prints The Epoch Times’ Hong Kong edition around 3:40 a.m. The men were dressed like pro-democracy protestors but wielded batons and ordered workers in Chinese: “All of you, don’t move!” according to the site.

One of the men hauled in two containers with a flammable liquid and poured them near the printing machines and newspapers. Seconds later, the men set the building ablaze and scurried away.

The building’s fire sprinklers and workers armed with extinguishers put out the fire, but two machines, rolls of paper, and stacks of newspapers were damaged in the attack, which lasted only about two minutes, according to Cheryl Ng, spokeswoman for the Hong Kong paper.

Ng described the stunt as “a crime against press freedom in Hong Kong,” and said the Chinese Communist Party is most likely behind it.

“The fact that two of the thugs dressed in black outfits (similar to those worn by) protestors is also (viewed) by us as CCP tactics – trying to use people against people,” she said. “We don’t think they are protestors because they have no reason to do so.”

The Times reports it was one of two out of eight Hong Kong newspapers that did not run propaganda from Beijing following last week’s conflict between Hong Kong police and protestors at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

“The Epoch Times has reported thoroughly on the protests in Hong Kong, giving the people of Hong Kong and the people of mainland China who visit the city a chance to know what is actually happening, while other local newspapers have bent to pressure from the CCP,” the Times reports.

“As one of the few independent outlets in Hong Kong, The Epoch Times is known for covering internal factional politics within the CCP, as well as the regime’s suppression of freedoms both at home and abroad. It also has provided extensive independent coverage of the ongoing pro-democracy movement, now in its sixth month.”

Hong Kong Civic Party Chairman Alan Leong said “evil thugs or the people behind them” are “becoming the public enemy of Hong Kong.”

“Hong Kong is not such a barbaric place, it’s a place where people convince others with reason,” he said.

The attack on the newspaper has already reached Washington, D.C., where Sen. Josh Hawley condemned the “deeply disturbing” incident.

Hawley told the Times “any assault on the freedom of the press in an assault on the liberty that was promised to the people of Hong Kong.”

“It’s an assault to the basic function of a democracy,” Hawley said.

The attack is the fourth time The Epoch Times has been attacked since the newspaper opened up shop a decade ago, with an attempt to smash the presses in 2006, as well as multiple break-in attempts in 2012. A computer technician for the news site was also kidnapped while visiting Zhuhai city in mainland China and forced to sign an agreement to work as a special agent for the CCP to sabotage the Hong Kong Epoch Times, Ng said.