Jimmy Lai’s ‘sham’ verdict is a stain on Hong Kong 

Jimmy Lai has spent five years behind Hong Kong bars. A “prisoner of conscience” in solitary confinement. On Monday, the 78-year-old former media tycoon was convicted of national security offenses in what was described as “a disgraceful act of persecution.”

The verdict was predictable in a city that had lost its soul. Under the Communist Party of China, Hong Kong was promised autonomy after the 1997 handover from the United Kingdom. Instead, a red tide has crept over the city, washing away its exceptionalism.

Freedom has become a dirty word, gradually eroded after the crackdown on mass pro-democracy protests during the summer of discontent in 2019. Campaigners such as Lai have become collateral damage.

“The ruling underscores Hong Kong’s utter contempt for press freedom, which is supposed to be protected under the city’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law,” Beh Lih Yi, the Asia-Pacific director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said.

“Jimmy Lai’s only crime is running a newspaper and defending democracy. The risk of him dying from ill health in prison increases as each day passes. This sham conviction is a disgraceful act of persecution,” she wrote.

[China] aims to silence everyone who dares to criticize the Communist Party.

Elaine Pearson, the Asia director at HUMAN Rights Watch

Behind the news:

• Lai used his media group to become a staunch pro-democracy supporter. Apple Daily, the biggest-selling newspaper in Hong Kong at the time, spearheaded the campaign.
• In 2021, its offices were raided under the city’s draconian National Security Law imposed by Beijing. It ceased publication, with Lai charged with colluding with foreign forces.

Delve deeper: “The Chinese government’s mistreatment of Jimmy Lai aims to silence everyone who dares to criticize the Communist Party,” Elaine Pearson, the Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said, insisting the conviction was a travesty of justice.

Between the lines: Amnesty International’s China Director Sarah Brooks also warned that the National Security Law was “not in place to protect people, but to silence them.” She added that “Jimmy Lai was a prisoner of conscience.”

Big picture: It was a view dismissed by the Chinese-owned South China Morning Post. In a report, the SCMP highlighted the city’s leader, John Lee, who called the conviction “an upholding of justice and a safeguard for Hong Kong’s core values.” Whatever they are.

China Factor comment: For the city’s people, Lee’s remarks have a hollow ring. Since 2021, almost 500,000 residents have left the Special Administrative Region, the Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation reported in 2023. The exodus will continue as Lai rots in prison.