Hong Kong dissident media mogul Jimmy Lai was sentenced to a year in prison for organizing and participating in an uncoordinated rally.
The 73-year-old billionaire who publishes Apple Daily, the latest criticism of local and Beijing authorities, took part in the protests of democratic activists and fiercely criticized Beijing's actions towards autonomous Hong Kong.
Lai, who was arrested in December when his newspaper was also ransacked, is being accused of eight more articles, including two under Beijing's national security law last year. The maximum punishment under these articles is life imprisonment.
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On Friday, nine prominent opposition figures, including several former members of the city's legislature, were sentenced to eight to 18 months in prison at the same time as Lai. 82-year-old politician and lawyer Martin Lee, who is called “the father of Hong Kong democracy”, received 11 months in prison with a suspended sentence.
All verdicts are related to the opposition rally that took place on August 18, 2019. Several thousand demonstrators with umbrellas gathered then in Victoria Park and held a peaceful procession.
This was the entirely peaceful march that HK ppl orderly gathered and walked during the rainstorm. This gave pro-democracy figures 8-18 months of jail today.
Police DID NOT authorize ANY marches in Hong Kong for around 1.5 years already. Where is HK ppl's right to protest? https://t.co/dl79L5O1sw
— LO Kin-hei 羅健熙 (@lokinhei) April 16, 2021
Three more activists received sentences for participating in another action on 31 August.
Earlier this week, Laya's Apple Daily published a letter that he wrote in his own hand and handed him out of prison. “Our duty as journalists is to seek justice. As long as we are not blinded by unjust temptations, as long as we do not allow evil to be embodied through our actions, we fulfill this duty,” it said.
On the eve of the sentencing, Lai gave an exclusive interview to the BBC. The billionaire, who was born in mainland China and was a child illegally taken to Hong Kong, said that even in prison, his life “will not lose its meaning.”
“I came here with a dollar in my pocket. This city has given me everything I have,” he said. “If the time has come for reckoning, then this is my redemption.”
He also urged like-minded people not to succumb to fear. “If they can cause fear in you, then this is the cheapest and most effective way to control you, and they know about it,” said Jimmy Lai. “The only way to defeat bullying is to face fear and let yourself be intimidated.”
