Our website use cookies to improve and personalize your experience and to display advertisements (if any). Our website may also include cookies from third parties like Google Adsense, Google Analytics, and Youtube. By using the website, you consent to the use of cookies.

Hong Kong tycoon Lai pleads not guilty in national security trial

Hong Kong tycoon Lai pleads not guilty in national security trial

HONG Kong tycoon and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai pleaded not guilty in a landmark trial, where he is accused of endangering China's national security, as prosecutors laid out details of what they said was collusion with foreign forces. Lai, a leading critic of the Chinese Communist Party, faces two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces - including calling for sanctions against Hong Kong and Chinese officials - under a China-imposed national security law. "Not guilty," Lai said three times as each charge was read, appearing calm as he sat in a glass dock surrounded by guards and a…
Read More
Inside Hong Kong’s Apple Daily, China’s besieged liberal media icon

Inside Hong Kong’s Apple Daily, China’s besieged liberal media icon

JAMES POMFRET and JESSIE PANG JOURNALISTS at Apple Daily, a feisty Hong Kong newspaper, had been bracing for some kind of a crackdown. The splashy Chinese-language tabloid - which mixes celebrity gossip, investigations of the powerful and pro-democracy editorials - has increasingly been under the scrutiny of the authorities since the arrest last August of owner Jimmy Lai, who remains in jail for joining unauthorised rallies. Still, Thursday's early-morning raid by 500 police officers was a shock, not only to Apple Daily staffers but to journalists throughout China's freest city and, more broadly, people concerned about eroding press freedom in…
Read More
HK tycoon Jimmy Lai arrested under security law, bearing out ‘worst fears’

HK tycoon Jimmy Lai arrested under security law, bearing out ‘worst fears’

GREG TORODE and JAMES POMFRET  HONG Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai became the highest-profile person arrested under a new national security law on Monday, detained over suspected collusion with foreign forces as around 200 police searched the offices of his Apple Daily newspaper. Mainland-born Lai, who was smuggled into Hong Kong on a fishing boat when he was a penniless 12-year-old, has been one of the most prominent democracy activists in the Chinese-ruled city and an ardent critic of Beijing. His arrest comes amid Beijing's crackdown against pro-democracy opposition in the city and further stokes concerns about media and other…
Read More