Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and mogul Jimmy Lai sentenced : NPR
People take part in a protest in support of Taiwan Apple Daily, the last media company owned by tycoon Jimmy Lai, on December 14, 2021, in Taipei, Taiwan.
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Prominent pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai has been found guilty of all three charges against him by a Hong Kong national security court.
The 855-page verdict – delivered more than five years after his first arrest in 2020 – was delivered to a packed courtroom that included Lai’s wife, one of his sons, and Cardinal Joseph Zen, who baptized Lai.
Judge Esther Toh said Lai was found guilty of two counts of colluding with foreign forces by seeking meetings with foreign officials, including US leaders, and advocating for sanctions against China. Lai was also convicted of a sedition charge under a separate colonial-era law.
Pro-democracy activist groups and Western governments criticized the verdict, with many, including the United Kingdom, calling for Lai’s immediate release.
“The Hong Kong court has been compromised and politicized over the past five years,” said Frances Hui, policy and advocacy coordinator at the pro-democracy advocacy group Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation. “I think this trial or this verdict is further proof that the justice system is no longer the system we once respected.”
Lai’s sentencing date will be announced at a later date. Lai’s defense team has not commented on the verdict.
Lai was initially arrested in August 2020 under a national security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong, largely in response to massive 2019 anti-government protests in which Lai was active.
Hong Kong’s national security office has arrested hundreds of people under the national security law, which punishes many dissident behaviors with up to life in prison. Critics of the law say it has virtually stifled any remaining dissent in the region.
Earlier this year, student leader Joshua Wong was charged with new national security-related charges while he was already in prison on other charges related to his political activism. In 2024, Hong Kong also sent 45 lawmakers and activists to prison for up to a decade on national security grounds.
But Lai’s trial, which began in 2023, has drawn intense international attention, due to Beijing’s insistence that he was instrumental in orchestrating much of the 2019 anti-Beijing protests. He is also the only defendant in the case who has not pleaded guilty.
“He thought there had to be someone to stick with to show the rest of the world that Hong Kong people were willing to stand up to the Chinese Communist Party, whatever the cost,” said Finn Lau, a Hong Kong political activist who worked with Lai and was involved in his national security case.
Before his verdict Monday, Lai was also convicted and served two consecutive 14-month prison sentences on other protest-related charges.
Family members said Lai, a devout Catholic, had been sustained by his faith and study of scripture after spending more than 1,800 days in solitary confinement, largely at his own request, according to the Hong Kong government.
But they also say Lai’s health has deteriorated significantly over the past five years in prison, due to Hong Kong’s sweltering summers and humid winters, and say he suffers from advanced diabetes and heart palpitations.
Lai’s astonishing rise from a child stowaway in Hong Kong to becoming one of the region’s richest men, after making his fortune in fast fashion, took another turn when he turned to the media. He helped create Apple Daily, a popular investigative tabloid, which authorities raided and then shut down in 2021. Nine Apple Daily editors and writers were later arrested under the national security law.
