Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, 7 others jailed over Tiananmen memorial – The Globe and Mail

Media tycoon Jimmy Lai and seven other Hong Kong pro-democracy activists were sentenced to up to 14 months in prison over a banned vigil last year for victims of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

A candlelit ceremony had been held every June 4 until 2020, when police banned the event on coronavirus grounds, despite Hong Kong at the time having negligible cases. Large crowds turned up regardless, ignoring police barriers around Victoria Park to hold a peaceful commemoration that did not result in any mass infection.

Handing down her sentence Monday, Judge Amanda Woodcock said the defendants “ignored and belittled a genuine public health crisis” and “wrongly and arrogantly believed” in commemorating June 4 rather than protecting the health of the community.

Mr. Lai, 74, barrister Chow Hang Tung, 36, and activist Gwyneth Ho, 31, received sentences of 13, 12 and 6 months, respectively. They had all pleaded not guilty.

Five others who had pleaded guilty, including Lee Cheuk-yan, leader of the now-disbanded vigil organizer Hong Kong Alliance, were sentenced to between just over 4 months and 14 months.

“If there was a provocateur, it is the regime that fired at its own people,” an emotional Lee, told the court last month. “If I must go to jail to affirm my will, then so be it.”

Many of the defendants are facing other charges or already serving sentences connected to a mass crackdown on Hong Kong’s opposition movement since mid-2020, when Beijing imposed a national security law on the city, banning secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces.

The law came into force weeks after the June 4 memorial. This year, the ceremony was again banned on pandemic grounds, but crowds did not defy the order, fearing arrest. An annual pro-democracy march on July 1 also did not go ahead after police refused permission, detaining Ms. Chow and others hours before it would have started.

Other areas of society have also been affected: Mr. Lai’s pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily has been forced to close down, with he and numerous other senior executives charged under the security law. Civil society groups have disbanded, and new election rules mean that a poll next week will include no candidates from traditional opposition parties, with most former lawmakers in prison or exile.

In a mitigation letter from prison, Mr. Lai said that if it is a crime to “commemorate those who died because of injustice … then inflict on me that crime and let me suffer the punishment of this crime, so I may share the burden and glory of those young men and women who shed their blood on June 4th.”

Since his arrest last year and a growing number of court cases, Mr. Lai has become an international symbol of Hong Kong’s shrinking press freedoms.

This month, he and his newsroom were awarded the Golden Pen of Freedom by the World Association of News Publishers. In her speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize last week, Philippines journalist Maria Ressa included Mr. Lai in a list of media figures “forced to sacrifice so much to hold the line.”

Supporters also launched a recent campaign in solidarity with Mr. Lai, designed to bring attention to the fact the septuagenarian could spend the rest of his life in prison once his court cases are finished.

“I want to make certain that as many people as possible around the world stand up for Jimmy Lai, who is a hero of everybody who believes in freedom, liberty, and the rule of law,” Chris Patten, the last British colonial governor of Hong Kong, said in a video message posted to the “Letter For Lai” website.

Canadian Conservative MP Garnett Genuis also posted a video, saying he stood with Mr. Lai “and the people of Hong Kong in their fight for freedom.”

It is unclear what success such international pressure can hope to achieve. Multiple senior Hong Kong officials, along with their Chinese counterparts, have been sanctioned for their role in the recent crackdown. International bodies and foreign governments have repeatedly criticized prosecutions under the security law. Beijing has responded by criticizing other countries for interfering in China’s internal affairs, while the Hong Kong government dismisses claims residents’ freedoms have been negatively affected.

With almost every prominent figure in prison or exile, optimism or hope for the future is often in short supply within the opposition movement. Ms. Chow, who was a vice-chair of the Hong Kong Alliance before it disbanded, presented a stark contrast in court.

“If those in power had wished to kill the movement with prosecution and imprisonment, they shall be sorely disappointed,” she said in a statement. “Indeed what they have done is breathe new life into the movement, rallying a new generation to this long struggle for truth, justice and democracy.”

With reporting from Reuters and Janice Dickson.

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