Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai (黎智英) would not appeal against the national security conviction for which he was jailed for 20 years last month, his legal team said yesterday, without providing a reason.
The 78-year-old founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper was found guilty in December last year on charges of foreign collusion and seditious publication.
His sentence was the harshest penalty doled out so far under a national security legislation imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing after widespread pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Photo: AFP
“We have clear and definitive instructions [from Lai] not to lodge an appeal against conviction or sentence,” his legal team said, adding that they would not give an explanation for the decision.
Lai’s conviction and sentencing received international condemnation, with rights groups saying his punishment was “effectively a death sentence” and a symbol of the city’s shriveling press freedoms.
UN rights chief Volker Turk has called for the verdict to be “promptly quashed as incompatible with international law.”
US President Donald Trump, who is expected to visit China this month, has urged Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to free Lai.
China rejected the criticism, with Beijing saying it lodged “solemn representations” with nations that condemned the sentence.
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee (李家超) lauded the “severe” prison term as a demonstration of the city’s rule of law.
Eight other defendants, including six Apple Daily executives, were handed jail sentences of up to 10 years in the same case.
All except Lai had pleaded guilty.
Lai’s decision reflects a “general disillusionment” with how the Hong Kong judiciary handles national security cases, Oxford Brookes University law lecturer Urania Chiu said.
The courts have “shown a ‘national security first’ approach which allows no space for rights-based arguments,” she added.
“Against this backdrop, it is hard for individual defendants and the general public to place trust in the judiciary’s independence and competence,” Chiu said.
Georgetown Center for Asian Law senior fellow Eric Lai said “it is premature to conclude whether forgoing an appeal might facilitate a negotiated release” ahead of any meeting between Trump and Xi.
That was because geopolitical conditions have “shifted considerably” with war breaking out in the Middle East.
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