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HONG KONG:
Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai was denied bail on Thursday on a cost of fraud associated to the lease of a constructing that homes his Apple Daily, an anti-government tabloid.
Authorities have intensified a crackdown on key opposition figures within the Chinese-ruled metropolis since Beijing circumvented the native legislature and imposed sweeping nationwide safety laws on the worldwide monetary centre on June 30.
While Lai’s fraud cost didn’t fall beneath the nationwide safety legislation, it marks the newest crackdown on pro-democracy figures within the former British colony, which was handed again to Beijing in 1997 with a promise to take care of the free-wheeling metropolis’s lifestyle for 50 years.
Critics say the legislation crushes freedoms within the world monetary centre, whereas supporters say it’s going to convey stability after extended anti-China, pro-democracy protests final 12 months.
On Wednesday, certainly one of Hong Kong’s most distinguished democracy activists Joshua Wong was jailed for greater than 13 months for his function in an illegal anti-government rally in 2019, the hardest and most high-profile sentencing of an opposition determine this 12 months.
Lai, 73, and two senior executives of his firm Next Digital, had been charged on Wednesday on suspicion of concealing from and falsely representing the usage of their workplace to their landlord, a public company arrange by the Hong Kong authorities.
The cost said they weren’t utilizing the workplace area as permitted beneath the lease between 2016 to 2020, and had sub-let part of the premises, leading to advantages to Apple Daily.
Reuters was not instantly in a position to attain Lai or his attorneys for remark. Next Digital suspended buying and selling on Thursday morning, pending an announcement containing “inside information”.
“This is about dirtying Jimmy up. It’s Beijing’s policing brought to Hong Kong,” Mark Simon, an affiliate of Lai, advised Reuters.
An ardent critic of Beijing, Lai has been detained since Wednesday after reporting to the police for his arrest in August. Prosecutors utilized to adjourn the case till April subsequent 12 months, in response to native media.
In August, Lai was arrested after about 200 law enforcement officials swooped on his places of work. Hong Kong police later stated they’d arrested 9 males and one lady for suspected offences together with “collusion with a foreign country/external elements to endanger national security, conspiracy to defraud” and others.
Suspicion of colluding with overseas forces carries a most sentence of life in jail beneath the brand new safety legislation.
Lai has been a frequent customer to Washington, the place he has met officers, together with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to rally assist for Hong Kong democracy, prompting Beijing to label him a “traitor”.
The safety legislation was launched on June 30 and punishes something China considers subversion, secession, terrorism or collusion with overseas forces with as much as life in jail.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
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