Former Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai began testifying Wednesday in his landmark national security trial that is widely seen as a measure of press freedom and judicial independence in the Asian financial hub.
Lai entered the court in a grey blazer and a pair of glasses, waving and smiling at his family members, who sat next to the city's Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen. The Catholic raised the Bible and swore his evidence would be true in court.
Lai, founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily pro-democracy newspaper, was arrested in 2020 during a crackdown on mass pro-democracy protests that rocked Hong Kong starting in 2019. He is fighting charges of colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiring with others to issue seditious publications. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.
Beijing promised to retain the former British colony's civil liberties for 50 years when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997. But critics say that promise has become threadbare under the rubric of maintaining national security.
Authorities have used a Beijing-imposed national security law to prosecute many of the city's leading activists, including Lai and 45 other democracy advocates who were sentenced on Tuesday. Other pro-democracy figures were forced into self-exile or silenced. Dozens of civil society groups have disbanded under the threat of the law.
