Jimmy Lai, 78, Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Role in Hong Kong Protests as Editor and Owner of Tabloid Apple Daily

The founder of a feisty Hong Kong tabloid, Jimmy Lai faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison for publishing editorials in defiance of the Communist Chinese regime.Mr. Lai, 78, waved at well-wishers, including his wife, as he was led in handcuffs into the Hong Kong high court that had already found him guilty of sedition and conspiring with foreign forces during mass protests against Beijing’s harsh rule over the former British colony. He waved again when led to a police van after the court sentenced him to 20 years.Jailed more than five years ago for a trial that lasted two years, Mr. Lai has won global acclamation as a free press hero but is not likely ever to regain the kind of freedom that he enjoyed while editor of the paper that he founded, Apple Daily. China’s president, Xi Jinping, has turned a deaf ear to personal entreaties by both President Trump and Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, in recent meetings to free him even though he would never be able to express his views openly again.Beijing’s hand-picked authorities in Hong Kong have been equally oblivious to the outcries of free press advocates around the world while making an example of Mr. Lai before those responsible for wild demonstrations demanding democratic freedom in accordance with the agreement reached between China and Britain before the end of British rule in 1997.“A sentence of this magnitude is both cruel and profoundly unjust,” said the Asia director of Human ‘Rights Watch, Elaine Pearson, condemning what she said was “effectively a death sentence” that showed “the Chinese government’s determination to crush independent journalism and silence anyone who dares to criticize the Communist Party.”Mr. Lai’s son, Sebastien, said “this draconian sentence” was not only “devastating for our family” but also “life threatening for my father.” His daughter, Claire, called the sentence “heartbreakingly cruel” while “my father’s health deteriorates dramatically and the conditions he’s kept in go from bad to worse.”The best if not the only real hope for Mr. Lai was that he would finally be released as a gesture of mercy. “It is time for China to do the right thing and release him before it is too late,” said Sebastien. “If this sentence is carried out,” said Claire, “he will die a martyr behind bars.”In the face of mounting condemnation worldwide, however, Chinese authorities showed no sign of softening the sentence for a self-made tycoon who had initially made his fortune by founding a chain of upscale clothing stores on which he bestowed an Italian name, Giordano.Forced out of the business for condemning the massacre of protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, Mr. Lai then founded Apple Daily as a colorful newspaper that mingled eye-catching pictures and gossip with editorials and articles criticizing Beijing again for the repression of freedom not only in Tiananmen Square but also in Hong Kong. Apple Daily’s sales soared as protests swelled.Mr. Trump reportedly raised the topic of Mr. Lai’s case when he met Mr. Xi at the end of October before the gathering of leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group in South Korea. BBC in December quoted Mr. Trump as saying “I feel so badly” and had asked Mr. Xi to “consider” freeing him.Sebastien Lai has criticized Mr. Starmer for not forcefully demanding the release of his father, who holds British citizenship, when the British prime minister met Mr. Xi in Beijing last month. “Surely there should be some conditionalities put on my father’s release,” the Guardian quoted him as saying. Time is running out for my father. Surely a man who defended freedom deserves a bit of it himself.”Demands for Mr. Lai’s release are sure to go on for as long as he remains alive and in prison. “Today marks the final blow to the rule of law in Hong Kong,” said the counsel for an international legal team formed on his behalf, Caoilfhionn Gallagher. Denouncing his sentencing as “an affront to justice, and the culmination of over five years of malicious lawfare against a courageous, elderly British citizen and prisoner of conscience,” she called on “leaders from around the world to speak with one voice in their demand for China to free Jimmy Lai so he can come home to his family in London at last.”

Jimmy Lai, 78, Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Role in Hong Kong Protests as Editor and Owner of Tabloid Apple Daily

Jimmy Lai, 78, Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Role in Hong Kong Protests as Editor and Owner of Tabloid Apple Daily

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