Jimmy Lai: Scotsman editor joins 100 media leaders to call for release of media tycoon

The media tycoon was jailed in December 2020.

More than 100 media leaders from around the world have joined Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in calling for the release of Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who has been detained for 18 months in a maximum security jail.

Mr Lai, founder of news outlet Apple Daily, which was shut down in the year after his arrest in December 2020, is already serving concurrent sentences on charges of attending “unauthorised” pro-democracy protests and allegations of fraud. He has been repeatedly refused bail. Before his arrest, Mr Lai had been one of the most prominent supporters of the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement.

A total of 116 prominent media leaders from around the world, including The Scotsman editor Neil McIntosh, have signed a joint statement expressing support for detained Apple Daily founder and publisher Mr Lai and calling for his immediate release.

Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon and Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai during his court hearing in 2020. Picture: Getty Images

“We stand with Jimmy Lai,” the statement said. “We believe he has been targeted for publishing independent reporting, and we condemn all charges against him. We call for his immediate release.”

The signatories, who also include AG Sulzberger, publisher of The Washington Post, Jennifer Wilton, editor-in-chief of German daily Die Welt and editors from a range of UK newspapers, also called for the release of all 13 detained journalists in Hong Kong, and for any remaining charges to be dropped against all 28 journalists targeted under national security and other laws over the past three years.

Questions over the erosion of human rights in Hong Kong, which was handed over to China by Britain in 1997, have been raised in recent years. In 2019, millions of Hong Kong citizens took to the streets to protest a proposed Bill that would allow Hong Kong authorities to extradite suspected criminals to mainland China.

Meanwhile, in July 2020, China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong, which allows it to take action against anyone it believes could be deemed a threat to “national security”.

Founded 28 years ago, Apple Daily’s office were raided in 2021 following allegations that several of its articles had breached a controversial national security law. A columnist was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to collude with a foreign country or foreign forces, while the paper’s executives were also arrested at their homes. Apple Daily’s management subsequently decided to close the paper to protect staff.

Christophe Deloire, secretary general of RSF, said: “We have brought these powerful voices together to show that the international media community will not tolerate the targeting of their fellow publisher. When press freedom is threatened anywhere, it is threatened everywhere.

"Jimmy Lai must be released without further delay, along with all 13 detained journalists, and urgent steps taken to repair the severe damage that has been done to Hong Kong’s press freedom climate over the past three years, before it is too late.”

Mr Lai’s son, Sebastian Lai, said: “Hong Kong is now a city shrouded in a blanket of fear. Those who criticise the authorities are threatened, prosecuted, imprisoned. It is deeply moving to now see so many powerful voices – Nobel Prize winners, and many of the leading newspapers and media organisations across the world – speak out for him.”