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The trial of Hong Kong’s most famous activist publisher who was arrested under China’s crackdown on dissidents will start Monday after being delayed for over a year.
Jimmy Lai, 76, broke into the city’s once freewheeling media world about three decades ago, armed with the belief that delivering information is equal to protecting freedom. Now, his own freedom is at stake as he faces a possible life sentence if convicted under a national security law imposed by Beijing following the 2019 pro-democracy protests.
Lai is charged with colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiring with others to publish seditious publications.
The landmark case — tied to the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily that Lai founded — is seen by many as a trial for press freedom and a test for judicial independence in the former British colony, which was promised to have its Western-style civil liberties remain intact for 50 years after returning to Chinese rule in 1997.
Lai is the founder of Apple Daily, one of the city’s media outlets most critical of the government. He was smuggled into Hong Kong from mainland China at age 12 and embarked on a rags-to-riches path, from working at a glove factory to founding the casual clothing chain Giordano.
After the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, Lai became an outspoken advocate for democracy. Later, following Chinese government attacks on Giordano, Lai sold his shares in the business.
In 1995, he launched Apple Daily, which quickly became one of the city’s top-selling newspapers with its sometimes outrageous coverage of politics and celebrities. The paper adopted a strong pro-democracy stance, often urging readers to join protests and denounced the enactment of the security law in June 2020.
During the 2019 protests, Lai took to the street and met with then-Vice President Mike Pence and U.
