In Hong Kong, media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to another five years and nine months in prison. The 75-year-old was found guilty of two cases of fraud by a district court in the Chinese metropolis, the court announced on Saturday. It is about alleged violations of the lease for the offices of his former newspaper “Apple Daily”.
The paper was considered one of the last media critical of Beijing in the former British colony, which is increasingly coming under the influence of the Chinese central government. After government pressure, “Apple Daily” had to stop appearing in the summer. It is Lai’s second prison sentence: The pro-democracy pro-democracy man has already been sentenced to 20 months in prison for his role in earlier mass anti-government protests.
Lai is also under investigation for alleged violations of the national security law that Beijing enacted in 2020 in response to protests by Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. Since then, activists, politicians and journalists have been sentenced to prison terms. There have been no major protests in the so-called special administrative zone with more than seven million inhabitants for a long time.
