Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai was found guilty of two fraud charges Tuesday, marking the latest of what critics describe as a Chinese crackdown on pro-democracy activists in the city.
Lai, 74, has already been serving jail time and is the founder of Next Digital, which published the now-shuttered pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily. He is currently serving a 20-month prison sentence for his role in assemblies that took place during the 2019 upheaval as well as a 2020 vigil for the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. All of those events were unsanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party.
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“Today’s conviction of Jimmy Lai on trumped-up fraud charges shows that Hong Kong will stop at nothing to silence one of its fiercest media critics,” Committee to Protect Journalists President Jodie Ginsberg declared. “Lai is clearly being targeted for his journalism, and the persecution must stop. Hong Kong authorities should let Lai go free and drop all charges against him.”
A sentence for Lai’s Tuesday conviction has not yet been announced, but he plans to appeal, a Next Digital executive told CPJ. Prosecutors accused Lai of subletting Next Digital office space to a firm in violation of the lease agreement with the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, the Associated Press reported.
One count of fraud pertained to allowing the secretarial firm to use the office space during the lease agreement from 2016 to 2020, while the other count was related to the same offense for the lease agreement between 1998 and 2015, per the report.
Lawyers for Lai have reportedly pleaded with the United Nations to investigate the case against him as “legal harassment.”
In addition to the fraud case, Lai is poised to head to trial in December for charges of “colluding with foreign forces,” which authorities are pursuing against him under the new national security law enacted during the aftermath of the 2019 uproar that swept Hong Kong.
Some six former employees from his company will likely plead guilty to the case, while Lai is expected to plead not guilty, according to NBC.
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Authorities froze the assets of Apple Daily last year causing it to shut down. It had been one of the last pro-democracy papers in Hong Kong.
Chief Executive of Hong Kong John Lee, the sole candidate approved by China in Hong Kong’s chief executive election earlier this year, has dismissed allegations that freedom of the press is under attack in the special administrative zone, but has maintained that “no one is above the law.”
