Who is Jimmy Lai? Pro-Democracy Media Tycoon Under High-Profile Trial in Hong Kong

Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai is set to face trial on Monday, the place he faces town’s harsh nationwide safety prices that might ship him to jail for all times. Lai, 76, based the now-shuttered Chinese-language tabloid Apple Daily, which criticised Beijing and backed the protest motion that roiled Hong Kong in 2019.

The pro-democracy determine stands accused of “collusion” with overseas forces underneath a sweeping nationwide safety regulation that Beijing imposed on the finance hub in 2020. Lai can be tried with no jury and has been denied the lawyer of his selection. The US, Britain, the EU, and the UN have all expressed issues about Lai’s case, however Beijing has dismissed them. Last week, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron met with Lai’s son Sebastien and later issued a press release saying the UK “will continue to stand with Jimmy Lai”, who is a British citizen.

‘Travesty of justice’

Dozens of activists have been charged underneath the 2020 nationwide safety regulation, however Lai is the primary to contest a overseas “collusion” cost. Imprisoned for greater than 1,100 days, Lai has already been convicted in 5 different circumstances, together with for organising and collaborating in marches throughout the 2019 democracy protests. Apple Daily was compelled to shut in 2021 after authorities used the safety regulation to raid it twice and freeze property price HK$18 million.

In a press release on Friday, the Committee to Protect Journalists stated that the trial was “a travesty of justice” and a “dark stain on Hong Kong’s rule of law”. “The trial is a travesty of justice. It may be Jimmy Lai who is in the dock, but it is press freedom and the rule of law that are on trial in Hong Kong,” stated Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, on Friday. “The government is pulling out all the stops to keep Lai behind bars. This is a dark stain on Hong Kong’s rule of law and is doing a disservice to the government’s efforts to restore investor confidence.”

The US State Department urged Lai’s launch in a press release. “Actions that stifle press freedom and restrict the free flow of information… have undermined Hong Kong’s democratic institutions and harmed Hong Kong’s reputation as an international business and financial hub,” stated spokesman Matthew Miller.

The Origin of Jimmy Lai

Jimmy Lai has been in jail for 3 years and faces the potential of spending the remainder of his life there. He is the primary individual to contest a “foreign collusion” cost underneath Hong Kong’s nationwide safety regulation, imposed in 2020 after big democracy protests engulfed town.

Born in mainland China, he was smuggled into Hong Kong as a stowaway on the age of 12 and as a toddler labored in sweatshops earlier than he later constructed up the vastly profitable Giordano clothes empire. Lai established his first publication shortly after the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, writing columns that often criticised senior Chinese leaders. His two retailers — the Apple Daily newspaper and the digital-only Next journal — have been vastly well-liked in Hong Kong. They have been additionally among the many few publications that overtly backed Hong Kong’s large democracy protests in 2019.

Born Rebel

Lai was vilified in China’s state media as a “traitor”. Asked why he didn’t hold quiet and luxuriate in his wealth like different Hong Kong tycoons, Lai instructed AFP earlier than his arrest: “Maybe I’m a born rebel, maybe I’m someone who needs a lot of meaning to live my life besides money.” He was first arrested in August 2020 when Hong Kong police raided Apple Daily and paraded him via the newsroom. A choose briefly granted him bail in December 2020 on steep situations, together with posting HK$10 million, however that lasted solely every week earlier than the highest courtroom ordered him again to jail.

He has been there ever since, together with his son Sebastien Lai calling him “the oldest political prisoner in Hong Kong”. A distinct, harder set of bail guidelines now apply to nationwide safety circumstances because the reversal in Lai’s case, affecting dozens of different prosecutions. Lai, a UK passport holder, was additionally denied his selection of illustration for his collusion trial: veteran British human rights lawyer Tim Owen. Hong Kong courts initially sided with Lai, however Beijing responded by granting new powers to Hong Kong’s chief to display abroad legal professionals in security-related circumstances. The metropolis’s pro-Beijing legislature went a step additional in May, passing legal guidelines requiring abroad legal professionals to get particular permission to hitch safety circumstances.

 ‘A death knell’

Lai has already been discovered responsible in 5 separate circumstances throughout the greater than 1,100 days he has been in jail. He was handed a sentence of 20 months for organising and collaborating in marches throughout the democracy protests that fashioned the idea of 4 prosecutions. He was convicted in the fifth case of “conspiracy to defraud” for breaching the phrases of an workplace lease. That added one other 69 months to his sentence.

Separately, he tried to cease police from going via two of his cellphones, citing authorized protections in opposition to looking journalistic supplies, and tried to guard his Apple Daily shareholder voting rights after the corporate’s property have been frozen. Lai misplaced each circumstances after High Court judges confused the significance of nationwide safety. He instructed AFP earlier than his arrest in 2020 that Beijing’s nationwide safety regulation could be “a death knell for Hong Kong”. “It will supersede or destroy our rule of law and destroy our international financial status,” he stated.

(With company inputs)