Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai (黎智英) was sentenced today to a total of 20 years in jail on three charges comprising two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one count of publishing seditious materials.
The Mainland Affairs Council condemned the "harsh" sentence and called for Lai's release.
"Jimmy Lai's harsh sentence under Hong Kong's National Security Law not only deprives him of his personal liberty and tramples on freedom of speech and press freedom, but also denies the people's basic right to hold those in power accountable," the council said in a statement.
Photo: AFP
The trial has been the Chinese territory's most high-profile national security case.
The sentence comes after a legal saga spanning almost five years.
Lai, the founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, was convicted on Dec. 15 on all three counts.
He was first arrested in August 2020.
Lai's sentence was within the most severe penalty "band" of 10 years to life imprisonment for offenses of a "grave nature."
The Hong Kong court said Lai's sentence was enhanced by the fact that he was "mastermind" and driving force behind foreign collusion conspiracies.
The 78-year-old, a British citizen, has denied all the charges against him, saying in court he is a "political prisoner" facing persecution from Beijing.
"The rule of law has been completely shattered in Hong Kong. Today’s egregious decision is the final nail in the coffin for freedom of the press in Hong Kong," Committee to Protect Journalism CEO Jodie Ginsberg said.
"The international community must step up its pressure to free Jimmy Lai if we want press freedom to be respected anywhere in the world," Ginsberg said.
Lai arrived to court in a white jacket, with hands held together in a praying gesture as he smiled and waved at supporters.
The case has drawn calls for the long-standing critic of the Chinese Communist Party, who friends and supporters say is in frail health, to be freed.
"The harsh 20-year sentence against 78-year-old Jimmy Lai is effectively a death sentence," Human Rights Watch Asia director Elaine Pearson said. "A sentence of this magnitude is both cruel and profoundly unjust."
Besides Lai, six former senior Apple Daily staffers, an activist and a paralegal are also to be sentenced.
"Jimmy Lai's trial has been nothing but a charade from the start and shows total contempt for Hong Kong laws that are supposed to protect press freedom," Committee to Protect Journalists' Asia-Pacific director Beh Lih Yi said.
Beijing says Lai has received a fair trial and all are treated equally under the national security law that has restored order to the territory.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS