Jimmy Lai has two media outlets that are unapologetically pro-democracy and critical of Beijing
Hong Kong:
Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai, one of Beijing’s most vocal critics, was arrested on Monday under a new law on national security for collaborating with foreign forces, and deepened an indictment of pro-democracy activists.
“They arrested him at noon around noon around his house. Our lawyers are on their way to the police station,” Mark Simon, a distant accomplice, told AFP, adding that other members of Lai’s media group have also been arrested.
A police source speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP Lai was arrested for collaborating with foreign troops – one of the new national crimes for security – and fraud.
Lai is owned by the newspaper Apple Daily and Next Magazine, two outbursts of unapologetic pro-democracy and critical of Beijing.
On Twitter, Simon said officers conducted searches at both Lai’s house and his son’s house.
A few Hong Kongers generate the level of vitriol from Beijing that Lai does.
To many residents of the restless semi-autonomous city, he is an unlikely hero – a pugnacious, self-made tabloid owner and the only tycoon willing to criticize Beijing.
But in the state media of China, he is a “traitor”, the biggest “black hand” behind last year’s enormous pro-democracy in Hong Kong and the head of a new “Gang of Four” collaborating with foreign peoples to undermine the motherland.
Lai spoke to AFP in mid-June, two weeks before the new security law was imposed on the city.
“I’m ready for jail,” the 72-year-old said. “When it comes down to it, I will have the opportunity to read books that I have not read. The only thing I can do is be positive.”
He described the law as “a death knell for Hong Kong”.
“It will replace or destroy our rule of law and destroy our international financial status,” he said.
He also said he was afraid authorities would come to his journalists.
The security law is aimed at secession, subversion, terrorism and cooperation with foreign troops.
It was introduced to stop the often violent protests of last year.
Both China and Hong Kong have said it will not affect the freedoms of the people and only a minority is targeted.
But the broadly worded provisions criminalize certain political speeches, such as pleading for sanctions, greater autonomy or independence for Hong Kong.
Critics, including many Western nations, believe the law ended the important freedoms and autonomy that Beijing promised Hong Kong could hold after its 1997 surrender by Britain.
Lai is no stranger to arrest.
He is already being prosecuted for participating in last year’s protests – and for dismissing a police ban on attending an early June commemoration of the deadly Tiananmen attack in Beijing in 1989.
(Except for the header, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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