When US President Donald Trump met at the end of October with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in South Korea, the conversation was not just about the trade war between Washington and Beijing or tariffs.
The republican also spoke about the case of Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong media tycoon, saying he would do everything to “save” him and suggesting that his release would be good for relations between the two countries and China’s image in the world.
This Monday (December 15), after more than 1800 days in solitary confinement and 156 days on trial, the 78-year-old activist, with diabetes and other health problems, finally hears the verdict.
He risks life imprisonment in a case that has become emblematic of the repression of human rights triggered by the draconian national security laws introduced by Beijing in 2020 to crush the pro-democracy protest movement in the special administrative region.
But who is Jimmy Lai and what is at stake?
The media mogul, who was born in Guangzhou in 1947, fled to Hong Kong when he was just 12 years old, hiding on a fishing boat. As a child, he began working in the textile industry to survive, eventually working his way up to become a manager. At just 28 years old, he bought his own factory and in 1981 founded his clothing brand, Giordano.
After the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, he became a pro-democracy activist and turned to the media sectorending up founding shortly before the handover of Hong Kong to Chinese hands, in 1997, the newspaper Apple Dailywho never spared criticism of the Beijing authorities.
Under the idea of ”one country, two systems”, Hong Kong justice continued to be based on the English system (the British had been in the territory for more than 150 years), which guaranteed Jimmy Lai greater protection than if he had been in mainland China.
But in 2019, the government presented a bill that would allow the extradition of suspects to, among other places, China, fearing that this would jeopardize Hong Kong’s autonomy.. This triggered the largest protests the territory had seen.
O Apple Daily quickly sided with the protesters, who were violently repressed by the police. The extradition bill ended up falling.
But, in response to the protests, the Chinese Government imposed a new national security law on Hong Kong, which criminalized the crimes of sedition (dated back to colonial times and had not been applied for decades), subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, with such a broad interpretation that in practice it criminalized freedom of expression and protest, leading to the arrest of dozens of dissidents.
Jimmy Lai and his children were arrested in August 2020, after the police searched the company that owns the newspaper, Next Digital, on suspicion of fraud and collusion with foreign forces (one of the new crimes). At the time, he paid bail and was released, only to be arrested again in December of that same year, after being formally accused of fraud.
In 2021, he ended up being sentenced on two occasions to 14 months in prison for unauthorized meetings, in events dating back to August and October 2019, with the Apple Daily publishing the last edition on June 24, 2021 and closing the website.
Lai, who has a British passport, is accused of using the newspaper as a platform to conspire with six other former executives to produce seditious publications between April 2019 and June 2021 (a total of 161 articles, including 33 opinion articles written by Lai himself) and of collusion with foreign forces between July 2020 and June 2021.
He is also accused of working together with former employees of the Apple Dailyforeign politicians and activists to call on countries such as the US, the UK or Japan to impose sanctions, blockades and other hostile measures against Hong Kong and China, through the group “Stand With Hong Kong, Fight For Freedom” (which can be translated as “support Hong Kong, fight for freedom).
Throughout the trial, which lasted 156 days, the prosecution claimed to have “overwhelming evidence” that Lai was the “mastermind” behind the operation. All of the accused, with the exception of the media mogul, pleaded guilty, with five becoming witnesses for the prosecution.
Lai said in court (and testified for 52 days) that he never asked the US to engage in hostile acts against China. “I was concerned about freedom and human rights in Hong Kong,” he said. And that It would be “suicidal” to ask for sanctions to be applied after the national security law comes into force.
On Friday (December 12), the West Kowloon court announced that the verdict will be announced this Monday, in a hearing starting at 10am local time (2am in Lisbon). If you are found guilty, you will learn at a later date what the prison sentence will be (you risk life). On at least two occasions during the trial, Lai described himself as a “political prisoner”, being criticized by the judges.
Widely seen as a test of Hong Kong’s judicial independence, the verdict will be handed down by three judges – Esther Toh, Alex Lee and Susana D’Almada Remedios – who were handpicked by Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing leader to hear cases relating to the national security law.
The non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders expressed its outrage at the “last minute” announcement of the imminent verdict, condemning an “arbitrary and illegal” trial and calling on the UK and US to put pressure on China. “This verdict will determine not only the fate of Jimmy Lai, but also the future of press freedom” in Hong Kong, they claimed.
Lai’s family (his children live in exile in the US) and lawyers claim that his health is deteriorating after more than 1,800 days in solitary confinement, and that he suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and heart palpitations that require medication.
Hong Kong authorities claim that Lai is subject to the same detention conditions as “other prisoners” and that medical services in prison are “comprehensive”.