Progressing from child labourer to billionaire, Jimmy Lai used his power and wealth to promote democracy, which ultimately pitted him against authorities in Beijing.
The Guardian’s Helen Davidson and Amy Hawkins chronicle Lai’s raise and fall:
Lai’s trial was one of the last unfinished national security prosecutions of Hong Kong’s high profile activists, over their involvement in the 2019 protests. Hundreds of activists, lawyers, and politicians have been pursued and jailed, or chased into exile. But few have captured global attention like Lai, whose life and career has developed in tangent with Hong Kong’s sputtering walk towards democracy, and then its fall.
“The trajectory of his life reflects the history of Hong Kong itself,” said Kevin Yam, a Australian-Hong Kong lawyer, who is subject to a Hong Kong arrest warrant for his pro-democracy activism.
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Geneva Abdul
The British son of the jailed Hong Kong media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai has criticised the UK government for failing to place conditions on his father’s release during the prime minister’s visit to China last week.
Speaking at a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday, Sebastien Lai said his father’s incarceration was not only a humanitarian and national security issue, but an issue “where our values are being locked up” along with him.
The remarks come after the first trip to China by a UK leader in eight years, during which Keir Starmer is said to have raised the case of the former media tycoon and one of Hong Kong’s most significant pro-democracy voices.
Weeks before the prime minister’s visit, it is understood Lai met with the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, and discussed the importance of his father’s case as well as the 78-year-old’s deteriorating health in solitary confinement.
“If it is so important then surely there should be some conditionalities put on my father’s release. The trip was a big thing to have been given away, the embassy as well,” said Lai, speaking at an all-party parliamentary group on arbitrary detention and hostage affairs hearing on his father’s case.
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Here are some images coming through the newswires from Hong Kong where Jimmy Lai is expected to be sentenced later today:
Hello,
Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong’s former media mogul is set to be sentenced on Monday, following a months-long trial in which the 78-year old was convicted on national security offences.
Lai, a British citizen and founder of the now defunct Apple Daily newspaper, was found guilty last December of two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, as well as one count of publishing seditious materials.
At the time of his verdict, Esther Toh, one of the three government-vetted national security judges who oversaw Lai’s trial, wrote: “There is no doubt in our mind that the first defendant never wavered in his intention to destabilise the governance of the CCP [Chinese Communist party], and despite the enactment of the national security law, he was intent on continuing, though in a less explicit way.”
Lai, who has been a vocal critic of the Chinese Communist party, was arrested in August 2020 following Beijing’s imposition of a national security law in Hong Kong in response to the city’s pro-democracy protests at the time.
Lai’s arrest and conviction had been widely monitored and criticised by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union.
In December, US president Donald Trump urged Chinese president Xi Jinping to “consider” releasing Lai, saying: “I feel so badly… He’s an older man and he’s not well. So I did put that request out. We’ll see what happens, okay?”. Meanwhile, upon returning from his trip to China last month, UK prime minister Keir Starmer, told UK parliament: “I raised the case of Jimmy Lai and called for his release.”
Stay tuned as we bring you the latest updates from Lai’s sentencing.