Pro-democracy Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai will on Wednesday take the stand in his collusion trial, testifying in court for the first time despite five previous trials in almost four years. Lai's case is one of the most prominent prosecuted under the national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020, with Western countries and rights groups demanding his release. The 76-year-old founder of the now-shuttered tabloid Apple Daily is accused of colluding with foreign forces, a charge that could carry a sentence of up to life in prison.
His testimony comes with Hong Kong's political freedoms already under the spotlight, after a court jailed 45 democracy campaigners for subversion in the city's largest national security trial on Tuesday. Lai's case centres around his newspaper's publications, which supported huge, sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019 and criticised Beijing's leadership. Lai has been behind bars since December 2020, and concerns have been raised around his health.
"The case of Jimmy Lai is not an outlier, it's a symptom of Hong Kong's democratic decline," the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a Monday statement. "Hong Kong's treatment of Jimmy Lai -- and more broadly of independent media and journalists -- shows that this administration is no longer interested in even a semblance of democratic norms." Hong Kong and Beijing have refuted the criticism, condemning Lai as "a voluntary political tool of foreign forces trying to curb China through Hong Kon.
