Jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai has denied condoning violent protest despite urging solidarity between demonstrates in 2019. He also told the court that his calls for amnesty were not at odds with his stance against violence.
The Apple Daily founder on Wednesday answered questions from the prosecution about an article in his own newspaper column, in which he aired suspicions that police had committed vandalism while masquerading as protesters.
Jimmy Lai in 2020. Photo: HKFP.
Lai has pleaded not guilty to two conspiracy charges of collusion with foreign forces under a Beijing-imposed national security law and a third of conspiring to publish “seditious” materials under colonial-era legislation. He could be jailed for life if convicted.
The article, dated January 1, 2020, compared two instances of vandalism — one against an HSBC branch and another against a China Life branch. “We don’t know if the black-clad people who ‘renovated’ the HSBC branch were our valiant brothers, but the ones who smashed up the China Life storefront were suspicious,” he wrote.
“Renovation” was a euphemism used by pro-democracy protesters in 2019, particularly “valiants” on the front lines, referring to targeted vandalism against companies understood to be pro-Beijing or Chinese-funded.
Regarding the latter occasion, Lai said: “We don’t know if the renovators were our valiant brothers.”
Not ‘part of the team’
Responding to Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Anthony Chau’s question as to whether his choice of pronoun “our” meant he had “associated” himself with the valiants, Lai said: “They were part of the movement, and that’s what we called them.”
Asked whether he identified as “part of the team,” he reiterated the same answer.
Judge Alex Lee then asked Lai whether it was his aim to seek “solidarity” among all protesters. The Apple Daily founder agreed, but on the condition that that solidarity came “without violence.”
He added: “I did not associate myself with the valiants, it’s just the way we called them through the perspective of the movement.”
West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts. File photo: Kelly Ho/HKFP.
The judges also called into question why he did not condemn the vandalism against HSBC mentioned in the article, as he had testified on previous occasions that he was opposed to violence, and highlighted differences in how the different vandalism attempts were described.
“Your paragraph really creates the impression you supported the actions of the valiants in ‘renovating’ HSBC,” said judge Esther Toh.
Lai said he “indirectly” condemned violence by questioning whether the protesters who vandalised the China Life store were actually police officers. “I think that was a negative thing to do, it was a bad thing to do, so I questioned whether they were our brothers,” said Lai.
Lai also said he was relaying popular views, and conceded that the idea that the police had masqueraded as police to commit vandalism was a “conspiracy theory to look into the mind of the police from the perspective of the people.”
Lai was then directed towards another sentence in the article, which read: “As things have come to this, it would be naive of us not to conclude that the police are wicked people who are full of lies and conspiracies.”
Apple Daily’s final edition on June 23, 2021. Photo: Kelly Ho/HKFP.
“Was it your conclusion that the police were wicked?” Lee asked, to which Lai replied: “At that time, yes” But he denied, in response to Chau’s questioning, that he intended to use the article to promote hatred against the police.
Asked whether he believed the police were the public’s “worst enemy,” as he wrote in the article, Lai said that “that was the prevailing sentiment of the people.” He added: “Hatred is no good, but that tells us how bad the relationship between the police and the Hong Kong people had deteriorated.”
Violence and amnesty
Lead prosecutor Chau on Wednesday also sought to prove that Lai, by not condemning the acts of vandalism, had intended to incite violence.
Pointing to a passage in Lai’s article in which he urged amnesty for protesters who had been arrested, Chau said: “You called for amnesty, you called for those who did violent criminal acts to be released and to exonerate those arrested or convicted… And that’s the reason why you didn’t condemn violence.”
But Lai said calling for amnesty and condemning violence were not mutually exclusive. “I condemn violence but I was proposing amnesty for the young people,” he said.
Jimmy Lai being transferred onto a Correctional Services vehicle on February 1, 2021. File photo: Studio Incendo.
That prompted judge Toh to ask if he did not condemn violent acts in his article, to which Lai said: “Yes, I did not condemn it, but I did not advocate it and I was negative about it.”
Judge Susana Remedios brought attention to the ex-tycoon’s earlier remarks, saying that a line of questioning seeking to prove that Lai was trying to incite violence would be at odds with his earlier testimony that he did not endorse violence in order to maintain international support.
“He recognised that endorsing violence would damage the moral high ground… that was his evidence all along,” Remedios said. “On the other hand you are saying he is trying to incite violence?”
Chau then asked if Lai wanted to “keep the violence under control” because he wanted to maintain support from the international community. He disagreed, saying he was “against violence.”
