When China passed Hong Kong’s new national security law in June 2020, Lai told the BBC it sounded the “death knell” for the territory.<\/p>\n
The influential entrepreneur also warned that Hong Kong would become as corrupt as China. Without the rule of law, he said, its coveted status as a global financial hub would be “totally destroyed”.<\/p>\n
The media mogul is known for his frankness and acts of flamboyance.<\/p>\n
In 2021, he urged Donald Trump to help the territory, saying he was “the only one who can save us” from China. His newspaper, Apple Daily, published a front-page letter that finished: “Mr President, please help us.”<\/p>\n
For Lai, such acts were necessary to defend the city which had taken him in and fuelled his success.<\/p>\n
He once told news agency AFP: “I came here with nothing, the freedom of this place has given me everything… Maybe it’s time I paid back for that freedom by fighting for it.”<\/p>\n
Lai has been slapped with various charges – including unauthorised assembly and fraud – since 2020. <\/p>\n
He has been in custody since December of that year.<\/p>\n
The prosecution of Lai has captured international attention, with rights groups and foreign governments urging his release.<\/p>\n
Over the years, Sebastien Lai has travelled the world to denounce his father’s arrest and condemn Hong Kong for punishing “characteristics that should be celebrated”.<\/p>\n
“My father is in jail for the truth on his lips, courage in his heart, and freedom in his soul,” he had said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When China passed Hong Kong’s new national security law in June 2020, Lai told the BBC it sounded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-342980","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115025310128866793","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}