Jimmy Lai convicted of conspiracy and sedition in Hong Kong

The legal proceedings against him date back to his arrest in December 2020, a five-year period that the tycoon spent behind bars, most of the time in solitary confinement.

Lai belongs to the noble lineage of these men confronted with the unjust justice of their time who, starting with Socrates, decided to stay. Unlike the last one, the Russian dissident Alekséi Navalni, will not pay with his life but with the rest.

There was no shortage of opportunities to leave Hong Kong for the millionaire, who turned 78 last week in his cell. He made his fortune in the textile industry before founding “Apple Daily”, the most popular tabloid in the territory until its closure in June 2021 due to harassment from local authorities.

Lai therefore no longer represents for many a celebrity but a hero, the only tycoon capable of openly criticizing the Chinese regime and defending the pro-democracy cause. However, Chinese propaganda has described him as a “traitor” and “the main black hand” behind the pro-democracy demonstrations which have plunged the territory into the greatest social crisis in its modern history since the summer of 2019.

The 850-page decision established that the “ultimate intention of his secessionist plots and publications” was to “bring about the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party at the expense of the interests of the people of Hong Kong and mainland China.” This likens his actions to those of a U.S. citizen who asked Russia for help in overthrowing the U.S. executive “under the guise of helping the state of California.”

To this end, he provides as “evidence” the editorials of “Apple Daily”, his interventions in “Fox News” and other international media, in which he called on the United States to impose sanctions on China for its repression in Hong Kong.

His two visits to Washington, during which he met with those who were then vice president and secretary of state, Mike Pence And Mike Pompeo. Lai, the judgment concluded, “harbored resentment and hatred” against China and “aligned himself with Western values” with the “fundamental goal” of achieving regime change in China.

Hong Kong wasteland

In accordance with the tradition of British common law, the sentence set a four-day mitigation hearing starting on January 12, the final stretch after the guilty verdict during which the defense presents arguments to request a shorter sentence.

There’s not much hope. Prominent players in Hong Kong politics had already warned in private conversations with this newspaper that the Chinese regime viewed Lai as the leader of the protests and would therefore receive the harshest punishment of all the civil society members prosecuted, known as “The Hong Kong 47.”

Lai’s conviction and the end of the territory’s political rights and freedoms were made possible by the national security law, imposed from Beijing in March 2020 despite the violation of the Basic Law that regulates the territory, in response to massive pro-democracy protests in the summer of 2019.

This legal framework punishes with life imprisonment any act considered as “separatism, terrorism, subversion of state powers or collusion with foreign forces”, by which the local executive has used to eradicate the opposition, the media and civil society.

As proof of this correlation, Lai’s conviction coincided with the official dissolution of the last opposition party, the Democratic Party. This formation, the most active since its creation three years before the return to sovereignty in 1997, had suspended its activities for months, and is now taking the definitive step.

“To have lived through these three decades, alongside the people of Hong Kong, has been our greatest honor,” its president declared today. Lo Kin-heiduring the last official act of the match. “Throughout these years, we have always considered the well-being of Hong Kong and its people as our guiding principle.”