Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai faces trial under ‘unfair’ national security law

The 76-year-old media mogul faces up to life imprisonment for alleged ‘sedition and ‘collusion with foreign forces’.

The national security trial of jailed Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai is due to begin on Monday, more than a year after it was originally scheduled to start, and three years since he was first imprisoned.

The 76-year-old, who is also a British citizen, stands accused of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and publish seditious material.

The most prominent figure to be charged under the security law that Beijing imposed on the territory in June 2020, Lai faces spending the rest of his life in jail. He has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

His son, Sebastien, who has been travelling the world to draw attention to his father’s case, told Al Jazeera he was trying to maintain some optimism.

“Obviously, this is a show trial,” he said in an interview in September. “They’re basically punishing [him] for standing up for the freedoms that the Hong Kong region has, and that were also promised during the handover. That’s all it is, really, and they’re using a national security law, and the national security law isn’t retroactive. So if we look at it even just on that very level, on their word, then none of these guys should be in jail.”