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.

Rights groups dismiss ‘sham conviction’ of media tycoon on national security offences in city’s most closely watched rulings in decades

• The rise and fall of Jimmy Lai, whose trajectory mirrored that of Hong Kong itself

Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon, is facing life in prison after being found guilty of national security and sedition offences, in one of the most closely watched rulings since the city’s return to Chinese rule in 1997.

Soon after the ruling was delivered, rights and press groups decried the verdict as a “sham conviction” and an attack on press freedom.

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.

Incarcerated activist and media owner has been on trial for more than two years on national security charges

• Jimmy Lai verdict: Hong Kong judges set to rule on national security charges

As has become usual with these national security cases, there is a large police presence outside the West Kowloon district court.

It’s about two hours from the verdict hearing beginning, and there are officers in plain clothes and uniform everywhere, as well as a massive press pack. Smaller than I have seen before, however, is the queue for the general public.

They want to put him in prison.