Autor: global-affair

Responding to today’s conviction of Hong Kong newspaper founder Jimmy Lai on national security charges, Amnesty International’s China Director Sarah Brooks said:

“The predictability of today’s verdict does not make it any less dismaying – the conviction of Jimmy Lai feels like the death knell for press freedom in Hong Kong, where the essential work of journalism has been rebranded as a crime.

“Lai has been jailed simply because he and his Apple Daily newspaper criticized the government. The activities for which he has been convicted would never have been considered crimes before the 2020 National Security Law was enacted.

“But this verdict shows that Hong Kong’s so-called ‘national security’ laws are not in place to protect people, but to silence them. It should also serve as a warning to all people doing business in Hong Kong: that pursuing opportunities in the city comes with severe legal risks.

“This verdict is not just about one man; it is the latest step in a systematic crackdown on freedom of expression in Hong Kong: targeting not only protests and political parties, but the very idea that people can – indeed, should – hold power to account.

“Jimmy Lai is a prisoner of conscience, jailed solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression, and he must be immediately and unconditionally released. The law that has been used to target him, and so many others, must be internationally condemned for what it is: a cover for the authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong to carry on their crackdown.”

Background

Hong Kong’s High Court today found pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai guilty of two counts of conspiracy to commit collusion with foreign forces and one count of conspiracy to commit sedition. He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Lai was charged with “collusion with a foreign country or external elements” under the Beijing-imposed National Security Law (NSL) on 11 December 2020. He has been continuously detained since 31 December 2020. He was later charged with two more counts of “conspiracy to collude with a foreign country or external elements” under the NSL, and one more count of “conspiracy to publish seditious publications” under the Crimes Ordinance.

Hong Kong authorities said the charges related to the publication of articles in Apple Daily, a newspaper owned by Lai, that called on foreign countries to impose sanctions. Authorities also cited Lai’s meetings with US politicians and interviews with overseas media, his Twitter (now X) posts and his list of followers on the platform which included prominent foreign politicians and NGOs supportive of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

Lai, a British national, was denied bail in February 2021 when Hong Kong’s highest court ruled that National Security Law cases were an exception to the presumption in favour of bail. The Hong Kong government also prohibited Lai’s British lawyer Timothy Owen from representing him.

Jimmy Lai founded the outspoken Apple Daily in 1995. Shortly after the National Security Law was introduced on 30 June 2020, nearly 200 police raided the newspaper’s headquarters. It was the first time the law was invoked to search a media outlet’s premises, and Lai was arrested along with his two sons and several newspaper executives.

Apple Daily closed in June 2021 following another police raid and the freezing of its assets, in what Amnesty at the time called a “brazen attack on press freedom”.

Prior to today’s verdict, Hong Kong courts have convicted Lai in four separate cases involving “unauthorized assemblies” and fraud and handed down prison sentences totalling over seven years.

Last year, Amnesty International recognized Lai as a prisoner of conscience alongside human rights lawyers Chow Hang-tung and Ding Jiaxi.

The post Hong Kong: Conviction of Jimmy Lai sounds death knell for press freedom appeared first on Amnesty International.