The High Court of Hong Kong has convicted pro-democracy activist and newspaper founder Jimmy Lai on three charges related to accusations that he undermined China’s national security, as part of a widely scrutinised trial.
Lai now faces the possibility of a life sentence in prison.
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On Monday morning, a panel of three judges found Lai, 78, guilty of two counts of conspiring with foreign forces to threaten national security and one count of conspiracy to publish seditious material.
Lai had pleaded not guilty to all the charges. He has been in detention since December 2020, when he was arrested in the midst of a series of antigovernment protests that gripped Hong Kong.
The case has been seen as a test of Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” principle, which was established after the former British colony was returned to China in 1997.
The principle affirmed that Hong Kong was part of China, but in theory, it allowed the territory to retain its own governance and administrative structure, separate from Beijing.
But activists say that autonomy has been threatened in recent years, as China seeks to assert greater control over Hong Kong. The territory, once seen as a beacon of free speech in Southeast Asia, has seen its protesters, journalists and publishers targeted for arrest and prosecution in recent years.
On Monday, Judge Esther Toh accused Lai of making “constant invitations” to the United States to take action against the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its ruling Communist Party.
She and her fellow judges, Alex Lee and Susana D’Almada Remedios, issued an 855-page verdict in the case, which described Lai as the “mastermind” of a criminal conspiracy.
“There is no doubt that the first defendant had harboured his resentment and hatred of the PRC for many of his adult years,” Toh told Monday’s packed courtroom.
Human rights groups and media advocacy organisations quickly slammed the verdict as a miscarriage of justice.
“We are outraged that Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong’s symbol of press freedom, has been found guilty on trumped-u