HONG KONG (LifeSiteNews) — Catholic businessman and Chinese political dissident Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to 20 years in prison by a Hong Kong court.
On Monday, the court handed down the toughest sentence to date under its national security law, as it ruled that his offenses of sedition and collusion with foreign forces were “grave” and “premeditated.”
The legal battle between Lai and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lasted more than five years, as the business tycoon and founder of the Apple Daily newspaper was arrested in August 2020 and found guilty in December last year on one count of seditious publication and two counts of foreign collusion.
The Hong Kong Court argued that the strict sentence was given because Lai was the “mastermind” behind foreign collusion conspiracies. Lai has repeatedly denied the charges and maintained that he is a political prisoner.
Supporters and family members of the 78-year-old Catholic man have warned that Lai could die in prison due to his health conditions.
His son Sebastian told the BBC that the prison sentence was “basically a death sentence” and that his father was being punished for defending “the freedoms of Hong Kong.”
The court also handed out prison sentences to six former senior Apple Daily employees, an anti-CCP activist, and a paralegal. The jail sentences range from six years and three months to 10 years.
After Lai’s arrest in 2020, several senior journalists of his newspaper, Apple Daily, were also taken into custody within the following months. The outlet was eventually forced to shut down in June 2021, with the final edition selling a million copies.
Lai’s daughter, Claire, stressed that their faith rests in God. “We will never stop fighting until he is free,” she stated.
International human rights organizations and many government leaders around the world condemned the harsh prison sentence.
“The rule of law has been completely shattered in Hong Kong,” Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said. “Today’s egregious decision is the final nail in the coffin for freedom of the press in Hong Kong. The international community must step up its pressure to free Jimmy Lai if we want press freedom to be respected anywhere in the world.”
According to the organization Reporters Without Borders, more than 900 Hong Kong journalists have lost their jobs since the enactment of the controversial national security law in 2020.
Republican Congressman John Moolenaar, who chairs the U.S. House Select Committee on China, said that if Chinese President Xi Jinping “wants to improve his relationship with the United States, freeing Jimmy Lai is where he needs to start.”
The EU’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Anitta Hipper, said the Union “deplores” the sentencing of Laid and calls for his “immediate and unconditional release.”
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said Lai, who is also a UK citizen, suffered a “politically motivated prosecution” and that her government would “rapidly engage” with the Chinese government over the matter.
Reggie Littlejohn, the president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers and Anti-Globalist International, told LifeSiteNews in December last year that “[T]he conviction of Jimmy Lai makes a mockery of justice and signals the end of any confidence in the Hong Kong judicial system.”
Littlejohn called upon UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Donald Trump to “hold the CCP accountable by prioritizing negotiations for Mr. Lai’s release on the basis of medical and humanitarian concerns, warning of the imposition of sanctions should Mr. Lai remain in custody. I call upon the U.S. legislature and governing bodies around the world to do the same. Jimmy Lai no longer belongs just to Hong Kong. He belongs to the world. Hong Kong’s National Security Law was designed to chill any criticism of the CCP. May the CCP be scorched by a firestorm of criticism from every corner of the earth for its appalling abuse of the incomparable hero and prisoner of conscience, Jimmy Lai.”
READ: Pray for Jimmy Lai’s freedom as he continues to suffer cruel and unjust punishment