HONG KONG — A Hong Kong court found media tycoon Jimmy Lai guilty of fraud on Tuesday, the latest in a myriad of cases against Lai and other pro-democracy activists that critics say officials are using to stamp out dissent in the Chinese territory.
Lai, 74, the founder of defunct pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily, is among the most prominent activists to be prosecuted in the wake of anti-government protests that swept Hong Kong for months in 2019.
Lai, a British citizen, is already serving prison sentences for his role in unauthorized assemblies during the 2019 protests as well as an unauthorized vigil in 2020 for victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Prosecutors in the fraud case accused Lai of operating a consulting firm from the offices of Next Digital, Apple Daily’s parent company, for more than two decades in violation of its lease with a government-owned entity. Lai and co-defendant Wong Wai-keung, a former senior executive at Next Digital who was also convicted, both pleaded not guilty.
The fraud verdict comes ahead of Lai’s trial in December under a new national security law, in which he is accused of “colluding with foreign forces” and conspiracy to produce “seditious publications.” Lai, who is pleading not guilty, could face life in prison if convicted under the law, which Beijing imposed in 2020 in response to the protests.
Six other former employees of Apple Daily and Next Digital are expected to plead guilty in the case, which will be heard by three handpicked judges rather than a jury.
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Critics of the national security law say it has greatly eroded civil liberties in Hong Kong, the preservation of which had been promised for 50 years when the former British colony was returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Officials say the law was necessary to restore order after the protests.
Hong Kong has experienced a dramatic decline in press freedom since the national security law was enacted, according to advocacy groups like Reporters Without Borders, falling from 80th to 148th in the group’s World Press Freedom Index this year.
Since last year, the government has shut down Apple Daily as well as another pro-democracy newspaper, Stand News; pressured Hong Kong’s largest journalist group; and arrested journalists under national security and sedition laws. An annual survey by the Committee to Protect Journalists found that the number of Hong Kong journalists it considers unjustly imprisoned for their work rose from zero to eight in 2021.
John Lee, Hong Kong’s top leader, has denied that press freedom is under threat, saying it is protected under the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution. But he has also accused “bad apples” in the industry of using journalism as a pretext to endanger national security and says “no one is above the law.”
Associated Press contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
