Hong Kong’s pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai takes stand in collusion trial

Lai denies supporting Hong Kong’s independence and says his now-defunct newspaper stood for ‘core values’ of the city’s people.

Hong Kong’s pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai has taken the stand for the first time in a national security trial widely seen as a barometer of the Chinese territory’s diminishing freedoms.

Lai, who faces a maximum punishment of life in prison for alleged collusion with foreign forces, said on Wednesday that he had entered the news business to “participate in delivering freedom”.

“The more you are in the know, the more you are free,” Lai told West Kowloon Magistrates Court.

Answering questions from his lawyer, Lai said that his now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper had stood for the “core values” of Hong Kong’s people, including the rule of law, freedom of speech, and the pursuit of democracy.

Asked whether Apple Daily opposed violence during Hong Kong’s mass antigovernment protests in 2019, Lai said he always stood against violence in “any form”.

The 76-year-old media mogul also denied supporting independence for Hong Kong or Taiwan, advocacy of which is fiercely opposed by Beijing.

Lai’s testimony comes as the narrowing space for dissent in the former British colony is already in the spotlight after a court on Tuesday handed down jail terms to 45 democracy activists in the city’s largest national security trial.

Lai, who fled to Hong Kong from communist China as a child, has pleaded not guilty to two charges of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and a charge of conspiracy to publish seditious material.

Prosecutors have accused Lai of soliciting foreign countries to take punitive action against Beijing, citing his meetings with officials including former United States Vice President Mike Pence and former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Lai already has convictions for offences, including “unauthorised assembly” related to pro-democracy marches, stemming from five previous trials during which he did not testify.

Rights groups and Western governments have condemned the cases against Lai as an example of Hong Kong’s deteriorating rights and freedoms since the imposition of a Beijing-drafted national security law in 2020.

“The authorities’ cruel persecution of Jimmy Lai is motivated solely by his exercise of the right to freedom of expression and commitment to press freedoms,” Amnesty International’s China Director Sarah Brooks said in a statement released ahead of Lai’s testimony.

“He is a prisoner of conscience, and the Hong Kong authorities must release him immediately and unconditionally, drop the charges and expunge all his criminal convictions.”