Several overseas activists, rights campaigners and politicians named in a national security trial for Hong Kong democracy advocate tycoon Jimmy Lai (黎智英) refuted allegations leveled by a government prosecutor in court that they colluded with him.
Lai, 76, founder of the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and a leading critic of the Chinese Communist Party, faces two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces — including calling for sanctions against government officials — under Hong Kong’s National Security Law, imposed by Beijing.
He is also charged with conspiracy to publish seditious publications.
Photo: AP
Before the trial opened, a supporter shouted “hang in there” to Lai, as he sat inside a glass dock surrounded by prison guards.
Prosecutor Anthony Chau (周天行) yesterday presented dozens of news clippings of Apple Daily, including news reports of a speech by Lai and commentaries that were critical of China.
Chau also cited Apple Daily interviews with frontline pro-democracy activists and anti-government advertisements.
Chau had earlier accused Lai of conspiring with activist Andy Li (李宇軒), a paralegal Chan Tsz-wah (陳梓華), exiled activist Finn Lau (劉祖?), Britain-based rights campaigner Luke de Pulford, Japanese politician Shiori Yamao, US financier Bill Browder and others to lobby foreign countries for sanctions.
Some rejected these allegations.
“Jimmy had nothing whatsoever to do with any of my work on Hong Kong at all, but Jimmy’s case isn’t about truth. It’s about delivering Beijing’s narrative,” Luke de Pulford, the head of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, wrote on social media.
The alliance, a group of more than 300 lawmakers in 33 countries, condemned attempts to implicate several of its members in the “sham” trial and said in a statement it was an “unacceptable infringement of the rights of foreign citizens.”
Lau, who is now based in Britain, also wrote on social media that Lai was not involved in any of his advocacy work for human rights and democracy, and called for the immediate release of Lai and others.
At least seven others have been alleged as Lai’s agents or intermediaries requesting sanctions, including retired US Army general Jack Keane, former US deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, former US consul general to Hong Kong and Macau James Cunningham and Hong Kong Watch founder Benedict Rogers.
“The idea that it is a crime for him [Lai] to speak to politicians, business leaders, international media and activists, as well as myself as a former diplomat, is ludicrous in the extreme,” Cunningham said in a statement.
Rogers wrote on social media that Lai’s alleged criminal interactions with various foreigners “ought to be regarded as entirely normal legitimate activity” for a newspaper publisher.
The trial demonstrated “just how dramatically and extensively Hong Kong’s basic freedoms and the rule of law have been dismantled,” he added.
In a statement yesterday, the Commissioner’s Office of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong described Lai as an “agent and pawn of foreign anti-China forces, who has blatantly colluded with external forces to endanger national security.”
The statement also criticized some foreigners named in the trial for “rebelling against China,” slandering China’s policies in the territory and “interfering with Hong Kong’s judicial justice.”
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