HONG KONG (LifeSiteNews) — Catholic journalist and outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison on a conviction of “fraud,” a verdict that has drawn international condemnation and rebuke, with the U.S. calling the charges “spurious” in a public statement.
READ: US gov’t condemns Communist China’s guilty verdict against Catholic publisher Jimmy Lai
Jimmy Lai, 75 and founder of the pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily, was sentenced on Saturday, Dec. 10, with Wong Wai-keung, the administrative director of Apple Daily’s parent company Next Digital. Wong was sentenced to 21 months in prison and Lai to five years and nine months. According to news outlet Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP), the judge also imposed “an eight-year disqualification order to Lai and ordered the media tycoon to pay HK$2 million in fines.”
As HKFP reported, Cédric Alviani, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) East Asia chief urged Lai’s release, stating, “Illegal demonstration, fraud, national security crimes — the diversity of the charges held against Jimmy Lai, and the staggering severity of the sentences imposed on him, show how desperate the Chinese regime is to silence this symbolic figure of press freedom in Hong Kong.”