Jimmy

Feb. 8 (UPI) — A Hong Kong court on Monday sentenced Jimmy Lai, a prominent pro-democracy figure and the founder of the now-defunct progressive Apple Daily, to 20 years in prison on charges stemming from protests that brought the Chinese territory to a standstill in 2019 and 2020.

Lai, 78, has been in police custody since the summer of 2020 and was convicted in mid-December following a 156-day trial that tested three charges that alleged he and his publication produced articles that encouraged foreign countries to sanction the city.

“Having stepped back and taking a global view of the total sentence for Lai’s serious and grave criminal conduct, applying the totality principle, we are satisfied that the total sentence for Lai in the present case should be 20 years’ imprisonment,” the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region said in its order.

The sentencing is expected to draw staunch criticism from human rights and pro-democracy advocates and condemnation from Western nations who have denounced his December conviction, trial and the National Security Law he was charged under.

“Today is a very dark day — for Jimmy Lai and his family, for his friends, supporters and advocates worldwide, and for all who cherished the rights and freedoms that were once enjoyed by Hong Kongers, but are now dismantled by the draconian National Security Law imposed on the city by Beijing,” Benedict Rogers, co-founder and chair of the Trustees of Hong Kong Watch, a Britain-registered charity, said in a statement.

“This outcome was predetermined. The trial of Mr. Lai was never fair or just, and never in line with the common-law protections central to Hong Kong’s judicial system prior to 2020.”

This is a developing story.

A court in Hong Kong has sentenced pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai to 20 years in jail following his conviction under a sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing.

A summary document by the court on Monday said 18 years of Lai’s sentence should be served consecutively to the existing five-year jail term in his fraud case.

The 78-year-old founder of the now defunct Apple Daily has already spent more than five years behind bars and was found guilty in December on two counts of foreign collusion and one count of seditious publication.

Given his age, the prison term could keep him behind bars for the rest of his life.

Ahead of the sentencing, rights groups and Western governments called for Lai’s release, with some denouncing the case as “nothing but a charade”.

Lai’s family, lawyer, supporters and former colleagues have warned that he could die in prison as he suffers from health conditions, including heart palpitations and high blood pressure.

Before Lai left the courtroom, he looked serious, as some people in the public gallery cried.

In addition to Lai, six former senior Apple Daily staffers, an activist and a paralegal were also sentenced on Monday.

His co-defendants received jail terms between 6 years and 3 months and 10 years.

The convicted journalists are publisher Cheung Kim-hung, associate publisher Chan Pui-man, editor-in-chief Ryan Law, executive editor-in-chief Lam Man-chung, executive editor-in-chief responsible for English news Fung Wai-kong and editorial writer Yeung Ching-kee.

Ahead of the sentencing, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement that Lai’s trial “has been nothing but a charade from the start and shows total contempt for Hong Kong laws that are supposed to protect press freedom”.

Reporters Without Borders said the sentencing “will resonate far beyond Jimmy Lai himself, sending a decisive signal about the future of press freedom in the territory”.

Beijing has dismissed such criticism as attempts to smear Hong Kong’s judicial system, while Hong Kong authorities maintain that Lai’s case “has nothing to do with freedom of speech and of the press”.

Lai was one of the first prominent figures to be arrested under the security law, imposed in 2020. Within a year, some of Apple Daily’s senior journalists also were arrested. Police raids, prosecutions and a freeze of its assets forced the newspaper’s closure in June 2021.

The final edition sold a million copies.

Lai’s sentencing could heighten Beijing’s diplomatic tensions with foreign governments. His conviction has drawn criticism from the United Kingdom and the United States.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he had raised Lai’s case during his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing last month, adding that the discussion was “respectful”.

Lai is a British citizen.

US President Donald Trump said he felt “so badly” after the verdict and noted he spoke to Xi about Lai and “asked to consider his release”.

Lai’s daughter, Claire, told The Associated Press news agency that she hopes authorities see the wisdom in releasing her father, a Roman Catholic. She said their faith rests in God. “We will never stop fighting until he is free,” she said.

Ahead of the sentencing, Hong Kong Free Press reported that police detained a woman outside the West Kowloon court after finding an Apple Daily keychain in her possession.

At least two other activists were also searched, including Tsang Kin-shing, a member of the now-disbanded League of Social Democrats.

The sentencing comes against the backdrop of heightened restrictions on the Hong Kong press.

The Hong Kong Journalists Association said in 2024 that dozens of journalists faced “systematic and organised” harassment and intimidation, including leaked personal information and death threats.

According to Reporters Without Borders, at least 900 Hong Kong journalists lost their jobs in the four years following the enactment of the national security law in the city.

Making his first major post-arrest television interview Monday on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” Don Lemon detailed the moments surrounding his incarceration and his experience as a journalist becoming the center of a news story.

“There’s a lot that I cannot say,” Lemon told Kimmel. “But what I will say is that I’m not a protester. I went there to be a journalist. I went there to chronicle and document and record what was happening … I do think that there is a difference between a protester and a journalist.”

The appearance arrived less than a week after the former CNN anchor — now an independent journalist who hosts a YouTube show — was arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles following his coverage of an anti-ICE protest at a Minnesota church earlier this month. Lemon, 59, was released without bond Friday and is expected to plead not guilty, according to his attorneys.

On Monday’s show, Kimmel began the conversation by asking Lemon how he was feeling: “I don’t know — that’s an honest answer,” Lemon said. “I’m OK. I’m not going to let them steal my joy, but this is very serious. These are federal criminal charges.”

Lemon was arrested — along with three others in attendance at the protest — at the direction of Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, who said on X that it was in connection to what she described as a “coordinated attack” on the church, located in St. Paul. Lemon is charged with conspiracy to deprive the church congregants of their rights and interfering by force with someone’s First Amendment rights. Lemon has denied participating in the protest at the church — assembled to decry that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field officer apparently serves as a pastor there — saying he was present in a journalistic capacity.

Playfully acknowledging that he hasn’t been a favorite of President Trump’s since his time on CNN, Lemon said he hadn’t been concerned about his possible arrest — even with a re-post by Trump calling for it — until it gained steam by members of Trump’s cabinet, including Bondi and Todd Blanche, the U.S. deputy attorney general. Lemon said that after retaining a lawyer and volunteering to turn himself in to handle the matter without fanfare, he “never heard back from them.”

“That is customary in a situation like this, that someone would be allowed to turn themselves in,” Lemon said. “People who are who are accused of much worse things than I am accused of doing, they are allowed the courtesy. I mean, Donald Trump was allowed the courtesy to turn himself in …”

Lemon went on to detail the moments leading up to his arrest Thursday, which came after a night of covering a Grammys event for the Black Music Collective and attending a post-party celebration.

“I got back to the hotel, I walked in with my swag bag from the thing … and I pressed the elevator button and all of a sudden I feel myself being jostled, people trying to grab me and put me in handcuffs,” he recounted. “And I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ And they said, ‘We came to arrest you.’ I said, ‘Who are you?’ Then finally they identified themselves. And I said, ‘If you are who you are, then where’s the warrant?’ And they didn’t have a warrant, so they had to wait for the someone from outside, an FBI guy, to come in to show me a warrant on a cell phone … They took me outside FBI guys were out there. It had to be maybe a dozen people, which is a waste, Jimmy, of resources … They want to embarrass you. They want to intimidate you. They want to instill fear.”

He said he hadn’t realized how much attention his arrest had generated until he saw CNN broadcasting the story on a TV monitor where he was being held.

“I could see ‘Former CNN anchor Don Lemon arrested in Los Angeles,’” he said. “I said to the guy, ‘Is that happening a lot?’ He goes, ‘You’ve been on all morning, yeah. And he says, ‘This is a big deal.’”

During the conversation, Kimmel criticized what he felt was a lack of attention to the recent search by FBI agents of the home of a Washington Post reporter who covers the federal government. Lemon, who parted ways with CNN in 2023, attributed it to a fear among the leaders of corporate press enterprises.

“Corporate media has been neutered right now. They are afraid, and that’s the reason I’m so happy with what I do, because I’m closer to the ground,” he said. “This is not time for folly. It’s not time for false equivalence, and putting people on television and on news programs, giving them a platform, who come on just to lie. …. Some things are objectively bad and I think its important in this time to point that out.”

Lemon hitting the late-night circuit intensifies its spotlight as a free-speech battleground. The Trump era has prompted more pointed and passionate takes from most of the major hosts that, in turn, have captured the attention and ire of the president, who has provoked threats against them and their broadcasters.

Last year, CBS announced it was canceling “The Late Show” after a three-decade run — a decision the company attributed to financial reasons and not, as many have speculated, because of host Stephen Colbert’s criticism of a settlement between the Trump administration and Paramount, the parent company of CBS, over a 2024 “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

More recently, Kimmel faced a brief suspension last fall over comments regarding the killing of right-wing activist and influencer Charlie Kirk (ABC ultimately reinstated Kimmel following public backlash.) In fact, Lemon referenced that situation prior to his arrest, when a judge dismissed prosectors’ initial charging effort: “This is not a victory lap for me because it’s not over. They’re gonna try again,” Lemon told his followers on his YouTube show after the judge’s ruling. “Go ahead, make me into the new Jimmy Kimmel, if you want.”

Last Friday, addressing a crowd outside the courthouse upon his release, Lemon said, “There is no more important time than right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media that shines a light on the truth and holds those in power accountable. I will not stop now, I will not stop ever.”