Hong Kong Court Sentences Pro-Democracy Publisher Jimmy Lai to 20 Years in Prison
The judges determined that Lai deserved the harsh sentence “because he was ‘no doubt the mastermind’ of the conspiracies he was convicted of orchestrating.”
A Hong Kong Court sentenced pro-democracy, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) critic media mogul Jimmy Lai, 78, to 20 years in prison.
Six of Lai’s former employees received sentences of up to 10 years.
Lai’s daughter Claire described it as a “heartbreakingly cruel sentence,” claiming, “he will die a martyr behind bars.”
The judges determined that Lai deserved the harsh sentence “because he was ‘no doubt the mastermind’ of the conspiracies he was convicted of orchestrating.”
They cut the sentence down by 25 months due to Lai’s “health issues, which include diabetes and hypertension.”
In December, The Associated Press reported that “[T]hree government-vetted judges found Lai, 78, guilty of conspiring with others to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiracy to publish seditious articles.”
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. However, the Communists have tightened their grip on the region, especially in 2020, with a national security law:
The stringent national security law and its 66 articles were kept secret from the public until 11pm local time, when the law officially went into effect. It dramatically broadens Beijing’s powers to investigate, prosecute and punish suspected criminals in Hong Kong.
The law was drafted behind closed doors by members of Beijing’s top lawmaking body, the National People’s Congress (NPC), bypassing Hong Kong’s own elected legislative council.
The new legislation criminalizes secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign powers. People who are convicted of such crimes can face sentences up to life in prison.
Lai published the Apple Daily in Hong Kong from 2015 to 2021. Lai, a Catholic, named it the Apple Daily after the fruit Eve ate in the Garden of Eden.
The publication shut down in 2021 after the government raided its office and arrested the top executives.
The international community has slammed Lai’s sentence.
“The Hong Kong High Court’s decision to sentence Jimmy Lai to 20 years is an unjust and tragic conclusion to this case,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “It shows the world that Beijing will go to extraordinary lengths to silence those who advocate fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong, casting aside the international commitments Beijing made in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration.”
Rubio urged authorities to give Lai humanitarian parole.
Lai’s son, Sebastian, blasted the UK government for not doing enough for his father, who is also a British National, after Prime Minister Keir Starmer traveled to China and met with Chinese Dictator President Xi Jinping.
“If it is so important then surely there should be some conditionalities put on my father’s release,” Sebastian Lai told a parliamentary group. “The trip was a big thing to have been given away, the embassy as well.”
Supposedly, Starmer brought up Lai during his trip. We do not know how the conversation went.
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Comments
you say hong kong
we say
ny
il
ca
Europe seems to like to do this also.
And there you see another act by the CCP that makes Democrats jealous
I love when people freak out that China may attack Hong Kong with military force.
China already owns it.
They took it without firing a shot.
China just buys everyone.
correct
and its even easier when they have homegrown street armies in those countries to soften up the patriots