Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul, was sentenced to greater than 5 years in jail on Saturday for fraud, a punishment that human rights activists denounced as the most recent blow to freedom of expression within the metropolis.
Mr. Lai, 75, was sentenced Saturday by Stanley Chan, a choose on the district courtroom, on two counts of fraud for violating the phrases of a lease contract associated to Apple Daily, a pro-democracy newspaper he based and which was pressured to shut final 12 months when the authorities cracked down on it. Wong Wai-keung, director of Apple Daily’s father or mother firm, Next Digital, was sentenced to 21 months for a similar offense.
Mr. Lai’s sentence of 5 years, 9 months — which human rights activists known as disproportionately harsh for what amounted to a contractual dispute — was an extra signal of the dwindling area for dissent and free expression in Hong Kong. A former British colony, it was promised within the phrases of its handoff to China in 1997 protections for particular person rights for 50 years beneath an association referred to as one nation, two techniques.
Mr. Lai nonetheless faces a number of further costs, together with one beneath a broad nationwide safety legislation imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing that has forged a pall of concern over town and resulted in jail phrases for a number of outstanding pro-democracy activists.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” mentioned Dennis Kwok, a former pro-democracy lawmaker in Hong Kong and a senior fellow on the Harvard Kennedy School, who questioned the framing of the case as fraud, versus a civil dispute. “This is clearly a political prosecution.”
Mr. Lai is without doubt one of the most outstanding pro-democracy figures to be focused by Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong after it was rocked by a wave of antigovernment protests in 2019 and 2020. The authorities have detained opposition figures, pressured information shops to shut and arrested and jailed protesters and activists.
Mr. Lai was charged in late 2020 for renting places of work of Next Digital’s headquarters to his personal consultancy agency, Dico Consultants, in violation of the leasing contract. (The lease designated the usage of the constructing for information functions solely.) Pro-democracy activists and specialists mentioned the case appeared to contain a minor offense that will usually not lead to jail time. Mr. Lai’s consultancy agency had occupied simply 0.16 % of the complete workplace advanced.
But Judge Chan, throughout the sentencing, known as the tiny proportion immaterial to the gravity of the case. He pointed to the intangible advantages of the association, in addition to the necessity for a robust deterrent, as justifications for a heavy sentence.
Mr. Kwok, the previous pro-democracy lawmaker, mentioned that it was uncommon for a fraud case of this nature to be dealt with by prosecutors and a choose who labored primarily on nationwide safety instances. “In normal circumstances, it would result at most in a fine or damages,” he mentioned.
Mr. Lai continues to be awaiting trial on costs filed in August 2020 of violating the sweeping and vaguely worded nationwide safety legislation that Beijing imposed on town that 12 months. In 2021, he was sentenced to 13 months in jail for collaborating in an annual vigil to commemorate victims of the 1989 crackdown on a peaceable protest in Tiananmen Square. Seven different pro-democracy activists have been additionally convicted and sentenced on this case.
Against this backdrop, Mr. Lai’s sentencing on Saturday was not a shock. For years, state-run Chinese information media and politicians have accused him of being a “black hand” colluding with international powers, and a few have brazenly known as for him to be punished.
Victoria Tin-bor Hui, a professor of political science on the University of Notre Dame, mentioned that a lot of China’s anxieties over the protests in Hong Kong had been projected onto Mr. Lai.
“They’ve blamed so much of what’s happening in Hong Kong on him,” mentioned Professor Hui, a Hong Kong native who has written extensively on town’s democracy motion and Beijing’s crackdown. “They’re just going to do whatever it takes to ensure that he gets all the punishment they want to inflict on him.”
Ted Hui, a former pro-democracy lawmaker in Hong Kong, mentioned the fees confirmed how China’s ruling Communist Party was taking a “comprehensive approach” to silence its critics. Mr. Lai’s sentence on fraud costs, he predicted, can be a prelude for additional incursions on what remained of Hong Kong’s impartial media.
“If they can use a highly technical case regarding a land contract, the regime can easily find another technical point regarding other media organizations,” Mr. Hui mentioned. “They can copy the model and persecute other organizations.”