HONG KONG — Jimmy Lai, a former newspaper writer and one in all Hong Kong’s most distinguished pro-democracy activists, spends round 23 hours a day in solitary confinement in a maximum-security facility whereas he awaits a trial that might ship him to jail for all times.
In unique photographs taken by The Associated Press in current weeks, the 75-year-old Lai will be seen with a e book in his palms sporting shorts and sandals and accompanied by two guards at Stanley Prison. He appears thinner than when he was final photographed in February 2021.
Lai is allowed out for 50 minutes a day to train. Unlike most different inmates, who play soccer or train in teams, Lai walks alone in what seems to be a 16-by-30-foot enclosure surrounded by barbed wire beneath Hong Kong’s punishing summer season solar earlier than returning to his unairconditioned cell within the jail.
The writer of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, Lai disappeared from public view in December 2020 following his arrest beneath a safety regulation imposed by Beijing to crush an enormous pro-democracy motion that began in 2019 and introduced a whole bunch of hundreds onto the streets. More than 250 activists have been arrested beneath the safety regulation and vanished into the Hong Kong authorized system.
Photographers used to have the ability to catch a glimpse of activists in remand at one other detention middle in Lai Chi Kok as they had been taken to and from courtroom. Authorities began blocking this view in 2021 by making the detainees stroll by way of a coated pathway.
In a separate case, an appeals courtroom is because of rule Monday on a problem that Lai and 6 different activists have had filed towards their conviction and sentencing on prices of organizing and participating in an unauthorized meeting almost 4 years in the past. The others are Lee Cheuk-yan, Margaret Ng, Leung Kwok-hung, Cyd Ho, Albert Ho and Martin Lee.
PHOTOS: AP will get uncommon glimpse of jailed Hong Kong pro-democracy writer Jimmy Lai
Lai, a British nationwide, is accused of colluding with international forces to hazard nationwide safety and conspiring to name for sanctions or blockades towards Hong Kong or China. He additionally faces a cost of conspiracy to print seditious publications beneath a colonial-era regulation more and more used to crush dissent.
He was scheduled to go on trial final December, however it was postponed to September whereas the Hong Kong authorities appealed to Beijing to dam his try to rent a British protection lawyer.
“My father is in prison because he spoke truth to power for decades,” Lai’s son, Sebastien, stated in a May assertion to a U.S. authorities panel, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
“He is still speaking truth to power and refusing to be silenced, even though he has lost everything and he may die in prison,” Sebastien Lai stated. “I am very proud to be his son.”
Lai is allowed two 30-minute visits by relations or associates every month. They are separated by glass and talk by cellphone.
In a separate case, he was sentenced in December to virtually six years in jail on fraud prices.
In May, a courtroom rejected Lai’s bid to halt his safety trial on grounds that it was being heard by judges picked by Hong Kong’s chief. That is a departure from the widespread regulation custom China promised to protect for 50 years after the previous British colony returned to China in 1997.
Lai, who suffers from diabetes and was recognized with hypertension in 2021 whereas in detention, is handled as a Category A prisoner, a standing for inmates who’ve dedicated probably the most severe crimes reminiscent of homicide.
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