Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy activist, was arrested in 2020 under a national security law imposed after the massive anti-government pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. The law introduced 39 new national security crimes in addition to the already existing national security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong. Beijing and Hong Kong authorities depicted the law as essential for restoring the city’s stability after the 2019 protests, but democratic organizations and politicians have deemed it a tool to restrict any form of dissent in the future.
After this law came into effect, several civil society groups ceased functioning, and dozens of political opponents either emigrated to other countries or were jailed, as in the case of Jimmy Lai. Jimmy Lai was one of the first and most prominent figures arrested under the national security law. Since 2020, he has spent more than 1,800 days in a maximum-security prison, mostly in solitary confinement.
When he was being arrested, police officers also raided Apple Daily’s office. The following year, authorities also arrested senior executives of Apple Daily under the national security law and froze $2.3 million of its assets, which eventually led to the shutdown of the newspaper. It was founded by Jimmy Lai in 1995, after the 1989 Tiananmen Crackdown, and published critical, pro-democracy articles, becoming one of the voices at the forefront of the protests.
In 2022, Jimmy Lai was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison on charges of fraud. And this Monday, after a prolonged trial, a Hong Kong court convicted Jimmy Lai of national security offences, and he could face life in prison for “orchestrating conspiracies to encourage foreign governments to take action against Hong Kong or China”.
In the 885-page verdict, Jimmy Lai was accused of making “constant invitations” to the U.S and other foreign powers to act against China “under the guise of fighting for freedom and democracy”. Prosecutors cited specific examples, including calls for U.S sanctions against China and a New York Times opinion piece in which Jimmy Lai advocated for revoking student visas for the children of government officials as one of the means to punish China for its repression of Hong Kong. Beijing has called Lai “an agent and pawn of anti-China foreign forces”. Prosecutors also highlighted Lai’s foreign contacts and his meetings with former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-Vice President Mike Pence during the 2019 protests.
US President Donald Trump said he had asked Chinese leader Xi Jinping to consider releasing Jimmy Lai, a request that is believed to have been made during their meeting in South Korea. The U.K. also called for the immediate release of Jimmy Lie, who holds British citizenship, and called Monday’s ruling “politically motivated persecution”. Several human rights groups and organizations have deemed this verdict as vivid proof of the deterioration of press freedom in Hong Kong. This decline is also reflected in global press freedom rankings, with Hong Kong falling to 140th place worldwide, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Author: Salome Markhvashvili
