UK, EU and Australia say guilty verdict against 78-year-old is further blow to democracy and press freedom in territory

Governments, institutions and rights groups across the world have condemned the conviction of the former pro-democracy media tycoon and British citizen Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong on national security charges.

The 78-year-old was found guilty in West Kowloon district court on Monday of one count of conspiracy to publish seditious publications and two counts of conspiracy to foreign collusion. The charges were brought under the city’s punitive national security law , introduced in 2020, and a British colonial-era sedition law that has been used in recent years by authorities.

Progressing from child labourer to billionaire, Lai used his power and wealth to promote democracy, which ultimately pitted him against authorities in Beijing

On Monday, a Hong Kong court convicted Jimmy Lai of national security offences, the end to a landmark trial for the city and its hobbled protest movement.

The verdict was expected. Long a thorn in the side of Beijing, Lai, a 78-year-old media tycoon and activist, was a primary target of the most recent and definitive crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. Authorities cast him as a traitor and a criminal.

Exclusive: Letters with deepfake images of Carmen Lau in UK and targeting of Ted Hui in Australia part of growing harassment

Sexually explicit letters and “lonely housewife” posters about high-profile pro-democracy Hong Kong exiles have been sent to people in the UK and Australia, marking a ratcheting up in the transnational harassment faced by critics of the Chinese Communist party’s rule in the former British colony.

Letters purporting to be from Carmen Lau, an exiled pro-democracy activist and former district councillor, showing digitally faked images of her as a sex worker were sent to her former neighbours in Maidenhead in the UK in recent weeks.