Taipei, Taiwan – The national security trial of Jimmy Lai, the jailed 75-year-old media mogul and founder of the now defunct Apple Daily newspaper, was supposed to start next month.
But it has now been delayed – again – until December 18.
Lai has already been sentenced to more than five and half years over a commercial lease at Apple Daily, and faces additional charges under the national security law (NSL) and sedition law, which dates from colonial times.
Lai was also denied his choice of lawyer – veteran British barrister Timothy Owen – for the NSL trial, which will be heard before a panel of three judges approved by Beijing.
Sebastien Lai, the tycoon’s 28-year-old son spoke to Al Jazeera in Taipei about his father’s situation and his hopes for the future.
Al Jazeera: What are your expectations for the upcoming trial?
Sebastien Lai: I’m optimistic, in a sense. Obviously, this is a show trial. There’s actually no basis for national security convictions. There’s no basis for anything that they can convict on up to now, and he’s been in jail for three years. But my expectation is that it’s an opportunity to see if Hong Kong and the Hong Kong government are people of their word, because at the end of the day, what was happening is very obvious to the free world.
They’re basically punishing a publisher, a 75-year-old man, for standing up for the freedoms that the Hong Kong state has and that were also promised during the handover. That’s all it is really and they’re using a national security law, and the national security law isn’t retroactive. That’s something that they’ve stated very clearly – once it was in place, from that point is what counts. So if we look at it even just on that very level, on their word, then none of these guys should be in jail.
Jimmy Lai reportedly spends 23 hours a day in solitary confinement in the maximum-security Stanley Prison and is allowed only 50 minutes to exercise [File: Louise Delmotte/AP Photo]
I think there’s a reason why they keep delaying the trial. There’s a belief that if you’re delaying it, it means that you don’t have a very strong case. And also, more importantly, they are really trying to get it under everybody’s radar – that’s why they’re doing it during Christmas. That’s my conclusion on my part, but it makes sense.
Al Jazeera: How do you feel about the government’s decision to block your father’s choice of a British lawyer for his national security trial?
Lai: I have no contact with the Hong Kong legal team. My contact is with the international legal team, and they’re independent of one another. And with the lawyer they provide… it goes to show where the Hong Kong legal system is now. But more importantly, I think it’s just a symptom of a much greater disease, of a much greater decay of the whole legal system.
You can see that in dad getting 12 months for lighting a candle at a Tiananmen Square vigil, how recently he was acquitted for organising a protest that 1.7 million showed up at, but he had already carried out the sentence.
Either way, I think the greater point is he served more than 10 months more than a year (referring to the time his father had already spent in prison) for participating in a protest with 1.7 million people, and on another level 1.7 million went out and protested [against] the government. I think what’s happening with the foreign lawyer is unfortunate but it’s more of a sense of where the Hong Kong legal system is going.
Al Jazeera: What can other countries like the United Kingdom do?
Lai: The UK has a responsibility to its citizens. My father is a citizen… they have a responsibility to their citizens, especially when they are being unjustly treated abroad. And there’s also an element of Hong Kong has essentially broken its promise to the UK about 50 years of handover, so there’s also that. The UK has to hold Hong Kong accountable, or at least call Hong Kong out that they are willing to break the pacts they have with other nations on a whim.
Hong Kong is trying to tell the world that they are open for business and they want to be part of the world again, and it’s important to realise that Hong Kong’s main benefit is it’s a place where it’s very close to China but it had the rule of law and a very free government system. It used to be a model of freedom and Hong Kong is still trying to tell the world that they have that, but they can’t do that if they have someone like my dad in jail. They can’t say they have free press and send 500 people to raid a newspaper. You have to choose one or the other. I don’t think you can treat the world like they’re stupid.
Jimmy Lai was first detained in December 2020 and brought to court in chains [File: Tyrone Siu/Reuters]
Hong Kong can either show the world that ‘we still want to be a part of the world economy’, ‘we still want to be open for business’ or they can keep doing this folly, which is basically cruel. My father, and the other political prisoners, they’ve already slandered their names and put them in jail. Dad’s been in jail for three years and at 75 that’s a long time. And so I think at this point it’s just cruel.
I hope that the UK puts my dad’s case forward every time they negotiate with Hong Kong, they are vocal about this and tell China and Hong Kong that this is unacceptable behaviour and that it’s not acceptable for China and Hong Kong to step on the freedoms that the UK has, or the free world has.
Al Jazeera: How’s your father doing in prison?
Lai: Unfortunately I haven’t seen him in more than three years since I left in 2020. I recently saw photos of him. I think he’s a strong man and I know that he is mentally tough, I know that obviously knowing you’re doing the right thing is a great source of strength, his religion is a great source of strength, but at his age he is the oldest political prisoner in Hong Kong unless they try to arrest someone else.
Al Jazeera: Are you close with him? People have challenging relationships with their fathers sometimes.
Lai: I was very fortunate, I was incredibly lucky because by the time that I was born, dad was already a bit older. So I’m 28, he’s 75. He was 47 when I was born, so obviously he was still very busy but we got to spend a lot of time together growing up. I think at the end of the day, he’s obviously someone I look up to greatly because of his actions [and] because of his willingness to stand by his word.
I saw videos from the BBC that they showed me from the archives and it was him before the handover. These English guys were interviewing him, and the crazy thing is this is like 30 years ago and when they ask him, ‘What are they going to do? Are they going to come after you?’ And he tears up and says, ‘Hong Kong is my home, it’s given me everything, so I’ll protect it’. And that was 30 years ago. It’s mind-blowing.
The Apple Daily was a hugely popular paper in Hong Kong and people queued for its final edition in June 2021 [File: Lam Yik/Reuters]
Al Jazeera: How would you describe the Hong Kong of today compared with the one where you grew up?
Lai: I think for a lot of people Hong Kong was always a very hopeful place. It had its issues but it was always a very hopeful place – a place where because of the institutions that were in place … where if someone was willing to work really hard they could have a successful outcome. But I think more importantly, it was one of the rare places in the world – a society of Chinese people that had freedoms besides universal suffrage. It was an experiment in that sense. It was always people leaving mainland China to come to Hong Kong and not Hong Kong to mainland China. So for me that was always a source of pride, the freedoms that we had, the hope that we had it’s what made Hong Kong so dynamic.
My impression of Hong Kong Kong now – and I haven’t been for three years – is that by and large that freedom is gone. It’s a place where the government has blurred the lines of the law so much that most people would rather stay clear of it. I think that element of not being scared of what you say or scared of what you do, I think that’s central to why Hong Kong was successful.
Al Jazeera: Where do you see Hong Kong in five years?
Lai: I think it depends on if the people running Hong Kong realise it’s true that these freedoms are one way to [stand out] because in the end, the government has to be accountable for what they say, they will be judged on their actions. I hope and I don’t know if that will be the case that Hong Kong will realise the cost of giving up these freedoms is too high and reinstate them. If that’s the case there is a possibility of it being a world city again. I think where it’s going though it’s probably going to be another mainland city, and it’s going to lose its competitive advantage, it’s no longer going to be able to compete with other cities in mainland China.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
