HONG KONG (ChurchMilitant.com) – A Catholic businessman in Hong Kong pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of sedition and collusion with foreign forces.
Jimmy Lai in 1997 (Photo: Mike Clarke, AFP)
Media mogul Jimmy Lai, who has been incarcerated since December 2020, entered his pleas in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Court while surrounded by heavy police guard. Lai faces the possibility of life imprisonment.
Lai’s now-shuttered newspaper, Apple Daily, was seen as a bastion of freedom of the press.
Prosecutors described Lai as a “radical figure” who produced seditious publications and conspired with foreign powers. In contrast, Lai’s lawyers framed him as someone who “dared to print some home truths that the authorities didn’t like” and called the charges flimsy.
Communist Crackdown
The media mogul and pro-democracy advocate was caught up in the 2019 crackdown of Hong Kong by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which included the imposition of a draconian national security law. The law would have forced political prisoners in Hong Kong to be extradited to mainland China to face trial.
According to Reuters, the 76-year-old appeared calm on Tuesday as he sat in a glass dock surrounded by guards and a court filled with family, supporters and foreign diplomats. Lai, a convert, has often cited his Catholic faith as a source of strength in his ongoing trials. He credits his wife, who introduced him to Catholicism, for making him “a good man.”
The Church’s Take
Lai is good friends with Cdl. Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong. In 2020, Cdl. Zen told the Catholic News Agency (CNA) that attacks on basic freedoms in Hong Kong extended beyond political repression and represented a growing threat to the Church.
“I have often said that there would not be any religious freedom when there is no freedom,” Cdl. Zen told CNA.
In February 2022, Cdl. Stephen Chow, the bishop of Hong Kong who became a cardinal in 2023, urged anti-communist students concerned about the political situation to face the future “like a giraffe” — with “vision.”
But in November 2023, senior Catholic leaders from around the world signed a petition calling on the government of Hong Kong “to immediately and unconditionally release” Lai from prison. Signatories include Cdl. Timothy Dolan of New York (USA), Bp. Lucius Ugorji of Umuahia (Nigeria) and Abp. Anthony Fisher of Sydney (Australia).
Sebastien Lai (Photo: Kyodo)
Commenting on the petition, Lai’s son, Sebastien Lai, said,
I’m very grateful and honored to see Catholics and Catholic leaders from around the world speaking out on my father’s behalf and calling out for his release from unjust imprisonment. My father’s faith and belief in right and wrong are key to understanding why my father stood up for democracy for the people of Hong Kong despite the obvious dangers to his life. Even now, imprisoned at [then] 75 years old, his faith is what keeps him strong; it is something the Hong Kong authorities can’t take away from him, having taken away so much else.
In a recent essay, someone who worked with Lai for decades in Hong Kong reflected, “How does one, as has Jimmy, not only find strength in our faith while being oppressed but grow in that faith, while the most powerfully oppressive totalitarian government on earth is trying to lock you away?”
