Prosecutors in Hong Kong alleged on Wednesday that pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai encouraged the city’s residents to engage in protests and pushed the United States to take action against China.
The British national, who founded the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, was arrested in 2020 and is now standing trial on charges of conspiring to collude with foreign governments and conspiring to publish seditious material.
Lai, 76, rejects the charges against him and has pleaded not guilty.
Western governments and human rights groups are closely watching Lai’s trial, which began in December, as a test for Hong Kong’s judiciary. Lai’s plight has come to symbolize the downfall of press freedom and other civil liberties in Hong Kong in recent years.
Prosecutor Anthony Chau on Wednesday presented what he said were Lai’s instructions to top leaders and editors at Apple Daily to come up with ways to urge the Hong Kong public to protest a proposed extradition bill in 2019.
The bill would have permitted suspects to be extradited from Hong Kong for trial in mainland China, but it was withdrawn following protests.
Prosecutors submitted 31 pieces of allegedly seditious content published in Apple Daily, including articles and commentaries urging people to protest.
The prosecution also said Lai instructed Apple Daily to introduce English content to bolster support for Western governments sanctioning China and Hong Kong.
The prosecution Wednesday alleged that Lai sought a comment on the extradition bill from Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, according to Irish lawyer Caoilfhionn Gallagher, who is leading Lai’s international legal team.
“This is simply public interest journalism,” Gallagher said in a post Wednesday on X, adding that the allegations against Lai are “ridiculous.”
Western governments and human rights and press freedom groups have widely condemned the charges against Lai as retaliatory and called for his immediate release.
If convicted of the national security charges, Lai faces life in prison. He is already serving a five-year and nine-month prison sentence in a separate fraud case.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
