The UK government and international rights groups have condemned the conviction of former pro-democracy newspaper owner and British citizen Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong on national security charges. On Monday, Lai, 78, was found guilty in West Kowloon district court on one count of conspiracy to publish seditious publications and two counts of conspiracy to foreign collusion. The charges were brought under the city’s punitive national security law (NSL), introduced in 2020, and a British colonial-era sedition law that has been used in recent years by authorities. The pro-democracy activist…
Tag: Hong Kong
Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai convicted of national security offences – video
Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon, is facing life in prison after being found guilty of national security and sedition offences in one of the most closely watched rulings since the city’s return to Chinese rule in 1997. The Guardian’s correspondent Helen Davidson explains what happened The Guardian
The rise and fall of Jimmy Lai, whose trajectory mirrored that of Hong Kong itself
On Monday, a Hong Kong court convicted Jimmy Lai of national security offences, the end to a landmark trial for the city and its hobbled protest movement. The verdict was expected. Long a thorn in the side of Beijing, Lai, a 78-year-old media tycoon and activist, was a primary target of the most recent and definitive crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. Authorities cast him as a traitor and a criminal. Lai’s trial was one of the last unfinished national security prosecutions of Hong Kong’s high profile activists, over their…
Jimmy Lai verdict: Hong Kong pro-democracy figure convicted of national security offences
Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon, is facing life in prison after being found guilty of national security and sedition offences, in one of the most closely watched rulings since the city’s return to Chinese rule in 1997. The 78-year-old has been in jail since late 2020 on remand and serving several protest-related sentences totalling almost 10 years. Monday’s conviction, in which judges called him a “mastermind” of conspiracies designed to destabilise the Chinese government, could see him given an extra life sentence. Lai had been charged with…
Labubus, TikTok and KPop Demon Hunters: how childhood went east Asian – podcast
From matcha and bubble tea to manga and Studio Ghibli, east Asian culture has become mainstream culture for millions of young people around the world. Jeff Yang, the co-author of Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now, describes to Nosheen Iqbal how after decades of American pop-cultural exceptionalism, the Covid-19 pandemic ushered in a new era of interest in east Asian culture, particularly as western attitudes towards subtitles shifted. The pair discuss the influence of social media on young people, the South Korean government’s deliberate…
Jimmy Lai verdict: Hong Kong court to decide on national security charges against pro-democracy figure – live
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Hong Kong’s last major opposition party disbands amid Chinese pressure
Senior DP members previously allege being told to disband or face severe consequences including possible arrest Hong Kong’s last major opposition party has disbanded after a vote by its members, the culmination of Chinese pressure on the city’s remaining liberal voices in a years-long security crackdown. The Democratic party (DP) has been Hong Kong’s main opposition since its founding three years before the financial hub’s return to Chinese rule in 1997. The party used to sweep city-wide legislative elections and push China on democratic reforms and upholding freedoms. Continue reading……
Sexually explicit letters about exiled Hong Kong activists sent to UK and Australian addresses
Sexually explicit letters and “lonely housewife” posters about high-profile pro-democracy Hong Kong exiles have been sent to people in the UK and Australia, marking a ratcheting up in the transnational harassment faced by critics of the Chinese Communist party’s rule in the former British colony. Letters purporting to be from Carmen Lau, an exiled pro-democracy activist and former district councillor, showing digitally faked images of her as a sex worker were sent to her former neighbours in Maidenhead in the UK in recent weeks. It is the first time that…
Silenced by China, Hong Kong struggles to voice its grief over the Tai Po fire disaster | Antony Dapiran
White flowers at makeshift shrines and messages of support posted in a public square. A rainbow of folded paper cranes. Boxes of donated goods for the those in need. Hongkongers’ responses to the Tai Po fire disaster – in which at least 159 people have died and 31 are still unaccounted for – have, on the surface, resembled similar community expressions of solidarity last seen during the 2019 protests. But beneath the surface, Hong Kong civil society is struggling to respond to this latest collective trauma in a city that…
‘Don’t say we didn’t warn you’: Beijing summons journalists in Hong Kong after fire
Beijing’s powerful security agency in Hong Kong has summoned journalists from international media to inform them it will not tolerate “trouble-making”, after critical coverage of the deadly apartment complex fire that has left the territory reeling. Senior reporters from several outlets operating in the city were called to the meeting by the Office for Safeguarding National Security (OSNS), which was set up by Beijing in 2020. In the meeting, which was attended by the New York Times and Agence France-Presse, an official accused journalists of tainting the government. The official…