Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai receives a 20-year jail sentence

For the 78-year-old publisher, 20 years of imprisonment is effectively a death sentence.

Originally published on Global Voices

The Hong Kong High Court sentenced pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai, the founder of now-defunct Apple Daily, to 20 years on February 9, 2026, following his conviction on foreign collusion and sedition charges last December. Lai's case marks the harshest punishment among all prosecutions under the 2020 National Security Law, enacted by Beijing in Hong Kong.

The city’s chief executive, John Lee, hailed the severe sentence as a manifestation of the rule of law, while Lai’s daughter, Claire Lai, described it as a “heartbreakingly cruel” sentence that would make her father “die a martyr behind bars.” 

Since Jimmy Lai is a British national, the UK Foreign Secretary Yvelle Cooper described, through a public statement, that the legal action against Lai was a “politically motivated prosecution” to “silence China’s critics” and stressed that the UK government will engage with the highest level of the Chinese government over Lai’s case.

The U.S Congressional-Executive Commission on China urged for Jimmy Lai’s immediate release and compared the human rights conditions of Hong Kong to those of Myanmar and Venezuela, where arbitrary detention of political prisoners is commonly seen.

International and human rights organizations also spoke out for Jimmy Lai. United Nations’ Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk said the court’s verdict should be “quashed” as the allegations were “incompatible with international law.”  The office stressed the conspiracy to foreign collusion charge “risks capturing legitimate activities of civil society organizations and journalists, including engagement with international human rights mechanisms.”

Elaine Pearson, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, decried that, for the 78-year-old publisher, 20 years of imprisonment is effectively a death sentence. Lai will be over 95 if he serves his full jail term. Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director, Sarah Brooks, slammed the sentence as “a cold-blooded attack on freedom of expression,” while Jodie Ginsberg of the Committee to Protect Journalists described the court’s decision as “the final nail in the coffin for freedom of the press in Hong Kong.” 

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian stressed that Lai was a “key planner” in a series of anti-China and disruptive activities in Hong Kong, and that “there is no room for argument” over the court’s ruling.

Lai was arrested after the police’s raid on Apple Daily on August 10 2020, weeks after the National Security Law was enacted in Hong Kong following a series of massive protests in 2019 against the amendment of a law that allowed the extradition of criminal suspects to China. The publisher was formally charged with foreign collusion on December 11, 2020. A few months later, on June 17, 2021, the police raided the news outlet a second time and arrested five senior executives. On November 22, 2022, six senior executives of Apple Daily and its parent company, Next Digital, pleaded guilty to foreign collusion charges.

Lai was accused of using his tabloid to lobby foreign governments to impose sanctions or other hostile acts upon China and Hong Kong. His published opinions served as evidence for inciting hatred against the authorities. His trial was adjourned multiple times as the city's Committee for Safeguarding National Security barred Timothy Owen, a UK lawyer, from defending Lai’s case. 

On December 15, 2025, Lai was found guilty of two counts of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and a third count of sedition under colonial-era legislation. The 78-year-old pro-democracy advocate has been in jail for more than five years since December 31, 2020, as he was first denied bail and then, while in custody, convicted of multiple charges over illegal assemblies and fraud. 

His lawyers pleaded for leniency, citing his age and health problems during a mitigation hearing on 12 January 2026.

In a reasons-for-sentence document, the three designated judges for national security cases — Alex Lee, Esther Toh, and Susana Maria D’Almada Remedios — wrote that Lai was “no doubt the mastermind” of the conspiracies.

They said that while an offender’s life expectancy, age, health, and prospect of dying behind bars were factors for consideration, they “had to be balanced against the gravity of the offence, and the public interest in seeing adequate punishment for serious crimes.”

Commenting on the court's heavy sentencing, Steve Li, Chief Superintendent of the police’s National Security Department, said that Lai’s health issue was “exaggerated.” He stressed the court’s heavy sentence demonstrated the grave nature of his crime and told the reporters:

Obviously, he [Lai] has done nothing good for Hong Kong that could serve as a basis for his mitigation… As for whether he will live out the rest of his years behind bars, none of us would know. But what I can say is that his sentence is certainly deserved.

John Lee, the city's leader, described Lai’s crime as “evil deeds were beyond measure,” adding that Lai used Apple Daily to “poison the minds” of Hong Kong citizens. He stressed that the 20-year sentence brought “great relief to all.”

Among the eight co-defendants of Lai’s case, three of the ex-staff members (Ryan Law, former editor-in-chief of Apple Daily; Lam Man-chung, former executive editor-in-chief of Apple Daily; and Fung Wai-kong, former managing editor of Apple Daily’s English version), who did not testify in court, received 10-year sentences.

The other three (publisher Cheung Kim-hung, former associate publisher Chan Pui-man, and editorial writer Yeung Ching-kee) received shorter sentences varying from 6 years and 9 months to 7 years and 3 months.

Two other activists, Wayland Chan and Andy Li, who were involved in publishing “Stand with Hong Kong” advertisements on international news outlets, were jailed for 6 years and 3 months, and 7 years and 3 months, respectively.