Jimmy Lai arrived in Hong Kong as a penniless 12-year-old stowaway from southern China, searching for freedom and opportunity. Decades later he became one of the city’s most prominent publishers and an outspoken critic of Beijing, a life he once said was so bound to Hong Kong that ‘I’ll sink with the ship, because this place gives me everything.’
Lai’s trajectory—from orphaned child to textile entrepreneur and then media proprietor—shaped his public role. After building a successful clothing brand, Giordano, he turned to media following the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, convinced that someone with resources needed to defend Hong Kong’s freedoms ahead of the 1997 handover. He founded Next Magazine and later Apple Daily, outlets known for mixing tabloid-style coverage with investigative reporting and frequent criticism of government policies.
Following mass protests in 2019, Beijing imposed a national security law it said would restore order. Critics have argued the measure sharply curtailed civil liberties and press freedom. Lai was among the first high-profile figures targeted under that law. Arrested in December 2020, he has since been a symbol of the shrinking space for independent journalism in the city.
This year the German broadcaster DW awarded Lai its Freedom of Speech Award, an honor that spotlights journalists and human rights defenders confronting restrictions on press freedom worldwide. DW Director General Barbara Massing praised Lai’s ‘indispensable dedication to democratic values,’ noting how Apple Daily provided journalists a platform and amplified the Hong Kong democracy movement. Sebastien Lai, Jimmy’s son and longtime campaigner for his release, said the award matters while ‘a lot of media in Hong Kong now are self-censoring’ and added that his father would be pleased to know of the recognition.
Lai has spent nearly 2,000 days in solitary confinement at Stanley Prison, Hong Kong’s maximum-security facility. In February he was sentenced to 20 years under the national security law for ‘colluding with foreign forces’—the harshest penalty imposed so far under the statute. He pleaded not guilty, and his legal team has said he will not lodge an appeal. In its judgment the court accused Lai of harboring a ‘rabid hatred’ of the Chinese Communist Party and of using Apple Daily to organize campaigns aimed at undermining the CCP and the Hong Kong government. Lai, a British citizen, was found guilty under the national security law last December.
Family and supporters have repeatedly expressed alarm over his health. Sebastien called the two-decade sentence ‘a death sentence’ and described concerns including diabetes, significant weight loss, nail shedding and dental decay. He has not seen his father in five years and can only communicate by mail; he says he cannot return to Hong Kong for safety reasons and fears his father may die in custody. Mark Clifford, president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong and a former Apple Daily board member, warned that such an outcome would be a grave blow.
Prosecutors have rejected claims of declining health, citing medical reports that describe Lai as in ‘stable’ condition and saying he remains in solitary at his own request for security reasons.
International appeals for Lai’s release have continued. In 2025, former US President Donald Trump said he had asked Chinese leader Xi Jinping to ‘consider’ releasing Lai, and Trump is expected to meet Xi again. Sebastien expressed hope that intervention might help, while acknowledging uncertainty about what life would look like if his father were freed—simple family moments, he said, would mean the most.
DW’s East Asia correspondent Rik Glauert also contributed to reporting on Lai’s case.