Hong Kong pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai honored by DW
Before being imprisoned for 20 years, Jimmy Lai founded Hong Kong's largest pro-democracy newspaper. His son said the award shows that those who fight for
Before being imprisoned for 20 years, Jimmy Lai founded Hong Kong's largest pro-democracy newspaper. His son said the award shows that those who fight for the freedom of others "are never alone." Arriving in Hong Kong as a penniless 12-year-old stowaway from southern China, Jimmy Lai sought only freedom and a future. At the time, Lai could never have imagined how his life would become forever intertwined with this former British colony. "I'll sink with the ship, because this place gives me everything," said Lai in an interview about Hong Kong with DW a few months before he was taken into custody in December 2020. He was one of the first high-profile figures to be targeted under a "national security law" imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing following a crackdown on pro-democracy protests. Beijing had said the law would restore Hong Kong "from chaos to order" after demonstrations in 2019 opposing an extradition bill morphed into massive protests against Beijing encroaching on Hong Kong's civil liberties. Since then, the pro-democracy media mogul has spent more than 2,000 days in solitary confinement in Hong Kong's maximum-security Stanley Prison. Lai's years-long trial ended this February, when the 78-year-old was sentenced to 20 years in prison for "colluding with foreign forces." While he had pleaded not guilty to all charges, his legal team said he will not appeal. The sentence is the heaviest punishment handed down so far under the national security law, and Lai's trial has symbolized for many people the severe erosion of press freedom in Hong Kong as part of Beijing's broader strategy to silence critical voices. Jimmy Lai recognized by DW In recognition of his defense of press freedom and freedom of speech, DW honored Jimmy Lai with this year's Freedom of Speech Award at the annual Global Media Forum in Bonn, Germany, on Tuesday. "While we have spoken freely in the defence of independent media, Jimmy, who founded an independent media company because he believed in the rights of the Hong Kong people to receive information, is locked away for those beliefs," Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a speech honoring Lai. "The attacks on Apple Daily and its counterparts in Hong Kong presaged the far greater attacks on civil liberties in the years that followed. Jimmy Lai saw this and spoke out.
We can honor him today not only by fighting for his freedom, but by defending the freedoms for which he was jailed." Since 2015, the DW Freedom of Speech Award has honored journalists and human rights defenders as a way to call attention to restrictions on press freedom and concerning human rights situations around the world. Who is Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai? To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Sebastien Lai, Jimmy Lai's son and a longtime advocate for his release, told DW in April that "people who fight for freedom, people who fight for the freedom of others are never alone." And it's meaningful at a time when "a lot of media in Hong Kong now are self-censoring." "I think if he knew about it [the award], he'd be very happy," Sebastien Lai said. DW Director General Barbara Massing said that with the award, DW is honoring Jimmy Lai's "indispensable dedication to democratic values." "Jimmy Lai has stood unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk, even as space for independent journalism became increasingly limited. With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in Hong Kong. His commitment reminds us that press freedom is never a given – it must be constantly defended." From stowaway to media tycoon Jimmy Lai was born to a wealthy family in Guangzhou, a city in southern China. His life was shattered by the Chinese civil war. His father fled, his mother was sent to a labor camp, and his family lost everything. At the age of 12 after tasting a piece of chocolate from Hong Kong—a rare flavor he believed was from a better world—Lai decided to stow away on a fishing boat heading for the British colony, which was handed back to China in 1997. In 1960s Hong Kong, starting with nothing, Lai went on to become a textile tycoon through the success of his clothing brand, Giordano, founded in 1981. For Lai, freedom at first meant a full belly, but once he had achieved financial security, he came to realize that freedom meant something more. The 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing became his turning point. "When the Hong Kong handover was going to happen in 1997, he knew that if China was willing to do the Tiananmen Square massacre, then someone in Hong Kong needed to campaign for democracy and defend this freedom; someone who had the means and the ability," said Sebastien Lai.
The BriefWire