Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong media mogul and pro-democracy figure, took the stand Wednesday for the first time in court since his arrest nearly four years ago, saying his newspaper represented the freedoms that people in the city valued.
One of the most vocal critics of China's ruling Communist Party, Lai, 77, is accused of advocating for secession and being the mastermind behind anti-government protests that swept across the city in 2019. Prosecutors in a landmark national security trial have charged him with conspiring and colluding with "foreign forces.” They say he led a campaign to get foreign governments to target Hong Kong and China with sanctions in response to moves by authorities to crush dissent.
Lai, who has pleaded not guilty, faces up to life in prison if convicted.
Lai for decades ran a popular newspaper, Apple Daily, that championed pro-democracy voices. The paper, now shuttered, was at the forefront of the 2019 demonstrations, amplifying protest slogans and publishing editorials and cartoons urging people in Hong Kong to join the movement.
Taking the stand, Lai said Apple Daily reflected the values of the Hong Kong people when asked by his defense team why he got into the media business.
"The more information you have, the more you’re in the know, the more you are free,” Lai said in a packed courtroom.
Steven Kwan, his defense attorney, asked Lai what Apple Daily’s core values were. Lai responded, "Rule of law, pursuit of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly.”
Responding to the accusation that he supported secession, Lai said he did not agree with the Hong Kong and Taiwanese independence movements, describing them as "crazy.” He said none of his staff at Apple Daily would have supported independence in Hong Kong or Taiwan, the self-governed democracy China claims as its territory.
Lai’s testimony comes a day after a national security court handed down prison sentences ranging from just over four years to 10 years for 45 former pro-democracy lawmakers and activists who were the most prominent members of Hong Kong’s political opposition.
His case has captured worldwide attention as a symbol of Hong Kong’s political transformation since Beijing imposed a national security law in 2020 to bring an end to the social unrest. Authorities have used the law to crack down on rights that had long distinguished Hong Kong from mainland China, such as freedoms of speech and assembly.
Prosecutors argued in his trial that Lai was a "radical political figure” who led a global effort to undermine Beijing’s authority over Hong Kong, a partially autonomous city of more than 7 million. Lai also faces a colonial-era sedition charge over material published in his Apple tabloid.
His supporters say Lai is merely practicing journalism and standing up for democratic rights that were promised to Hong Kong when Britain returned the territory to Chinese rule in 1997. Among them is his son Sebastien Lai, who has led an international campaign from overseas to free his father.
"I know what he is doing is the right thing and I am very proud of him,” said Sebastien Lai, 30. "My father is a very strong person, mentally and spiritually. But he’s been in there for almost four years. It’s completely inhumane.”
Concern is growing for Jimmy Lai’s health given his advanced age. Lai has diabetes and often spends 23 hours a day in solitary confinement. The public was given a rare glimpse of Lai’s life in prison last year when the Associated Press published photographs of the media tycoon, accompanied by guards while exercising alone in a small enclosure surrounded by high barbed wire fence.
The Hong Kong government said in a statement Sunday that Lai was receiving "appropriate treatment and care” in custody. It also said that Lai had asked to be held in solitary confinement.
Western governments, including the United States and Britain, have condemned Lai’s arrest and called for his release. President-elect Donald Trump said last month in a podcast interview that he would "100%” get Lai out of prison, adding that it would be "easy.”
Lai is a British citizen and on Monday, the country’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, raised concerns about the "deterioration” of Lai’s health while speaking to Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Brazil. Seconds after the exchange, the Chinese delegation ejected journalists from the room where the meeting was being held before Starmer had finished talking.
The prosecution’s case relies partly on Lai’s public statements, some made in online posts and videos, and others made in interviews, appealing to foreign governments to pressure China to live up to its promise to grant Hong Kong greater democracy. That includes meetings Lai had with the U.S.'s then-Vice President Mike Pence and then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
When Lai was brought into the courtroom and briefly held in a glass enclosure flanked by two officers, he waved at his wife and daughter. He wore a brown blazer and green sweater over a white dress shirt, and spoke in a gravelly voice.
Lai was not always thought of as a political firebrand. For years, he embodied Hong Kong’s rags-to-riches success; an immigrant from the mainland who worked at a factory and later made a fortune founding the clothing brand, Giordano.
His politics hardened after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown that killed hundreds, possibly thousands, of pro-democracy demonstrators. Shortly after, he turned to publishing by launching Next Magazine in 1990 and Apple Daily in 1995.
Sebastien Lai has considered the possibility that he may never hear from his father again once the trial ends.
"The case is very urgent,” he said. "Who knows how much time he has left.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times © 2025 The New York Times Company
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