The national security trial of jailed Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai is set to begin Monday, more than a year after it was originally scheduled, and three years since he was first jailed.
The 76-year-old, who is also a British citizen, is accused of conspiring to conspire with foreign forces and publishing seditious material.
Lai, the most prominent figure charged under the security law imposed on the area by Beijing in June 2020, will spend the rest of his life in prison. He has pleaded not guilty on all counts.
His son Sebastien, who travels the world to draw attention to his father’s cause, told Al Jazeera he was trying to maintain some optimism.
“It’s clear this is a show trial,” he said in an interview in September. “They actually punish [him] for standing up for the freedoms that the Hong Kong region has, and that were also promised during the handover. That’s basically it, and they’re using a national security law, and the national security law is not retroactive. So if we even look at it at that level, at their word, none of these guys should be in jail.”
Earlier this week, Sebastien met the United Kingdom’s recently appointed Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, a former prime minister who once favored closer ties with Beijing.
Cameron pledged that Britain would “continue to support Jimmy Lai and the people of HK,” according to a message from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on social media platform X.
Afterwards, Sebastien said he hoped Britain would soon “add its voice” to US and European Union calls for his father’s immediate release.
From poor to rich
Before Lai was arrested at his home in August 2020 – and taken by police in a raid on his newspaper office that was broadcast live by journalists – he was known as much for his entrepreneurial success as for his criticism of Beijing’s Communist Party. rarity among Hong Kong’s wealthy.
Born Lai Chee-ying in China in December 1947, he arrived in Hong Kong, then a British colony, after stowing away in a fishing boat. He was only 12 years old.
Lai found work in a clothing factory and gradually rose through the ranks, eventually founding his own Giordano brand selling T-shirts, chinos and everyday basics in a Hong Kong version of US retailer Gap, which became hugely popular in the entire region.
In the 1990s, as Britain prepared for 1997 and the handover of Hong Kong to China, Lai used the money he made from the sale of Giordano to focus on media and founded Next Media, publisher of the popular tabloid Apple Daily and other Chinese media. language shops in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
In Hong Kong’s then media landscape, newspapers attracted hundreds of thousands of readers for their mix of critical reporting on China and thought-provoking gossip, making the most of the “one country, two systems” framework that was intended to ensure Hong Kong retained its rights and freedoms who had long enjoyed it, but which were unheard of on the Continent.
In 2008, Forbes estimated his net worth at around $1.2 billion and said he “thrived by promoting freedom of speech and democracy.”
Lai and Apple Daily came under fire in the wake of the 2019 mass demonstrations, which began over concerns over a planned extradition bill with mainland China and evolved into calls for greater democracy. The protests took place amid growing unease over Beijing’s gradual tightening of control over political life, despite promises made in 1997.
Lai has been imprisoned since December 2020, first in pre-trial detention and later as a result of short prison sentences for a series of separate charges related to the management of Apple Daily and his involvement in a vigil marking the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
After 26 years, the last edition of the Apple Daily rolled off the press in June 2021.
Following two police raids, which saw the arrest of top executives of Lai and Next Media and the imposition of a bank account freeze, the company said the decision reflected “employee and manpower safety considerations”.
Challenging power
After being denied bail shortly after his first arrest, Lai used his high-profile status to challenge the security law.
He initially planned to hire a British lawyer, Timothy Owen, to defend him in a decision that was backed by Hong Kong’s highest court. safety cases.
The ruling prompted Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, a former security minister, to ask Beijing to intervene, arguing that a foreign lawyer could reveal state secrets or be compromised by a foreign government.
The intervention, days before the trial was due to start, led to a months-long delay, with Beijing ultimately ruling that Lai could not hire the British lawyer.
Denied his choice of lawyer, Lai will face a panel of three hand-picked judges. Unlike the common law criminal justice system in Hong Kong, there will be no jury.
“Jimmy Lai has already spent three years in prison for his journalism and his peaceful pro-democracy activities,” said Caoilfhionn Gallagher of London’s Doughty Street Chambers, which represents the Lai family in matters of international law. “He is now being prosecuted for unlawful reasons, under an unfair law and in a broken justice system.”
The trial is expected to last 80 days until March next year.
“On the one hand, there will be an attempt by the Hong Kong authorities to show that they are taking their lawsuit seriously,” Kevin Yam, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Asian Law, told Al Jazeera. On the other hand, Lai’s defense team “appears to want to use the long and painful trial to demonstrate the absurdity of the charges against him,” he added.
Maya Wang, associate director at Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, said the proceedings will provide insight into how the security law works.
“I think Jimmy Lai will eventually be jailed. The question is for how long,” Wang told Al Jazeera. “I would like to pay attention to the way in which the prosecutor characterizes his conspiracy charge, because it could carry up to life imprisonment, depending on the severity.”
“It is also very important to note that, given Jimmy’s very advanced age, even a short sentence would effectively mean a life sentence for him,” she said.
Hong Kong’s national security police arrested 264 people and charged 148 under the national security law or the recently revived colonial offense of sedition in August, according to research by colleague Eric Lai and others at the Georgetown Center for Asian Law.
Besides Lai, Hong Kong’s other national security trials include the ongoing mega-trial of 47 pro-democracy lawmakers and activists – for organizing a pre-selection process to choose their candidates for elections that were later postponed – and the sedition trial of journalists in present-day Hong Kong . the defunct Stand News, but among those charged under the law are people who participated in the 2019 protests.
