Wed 23 December 2020:
Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying was granted a HK$ 10 million ($1.29 million) bail on Wednesday by the Hong Kong High Court after being charged with fraud and violating the national security law for Hong Kong.
Lai is one of the financial hub’s most ardent Beijing critics, while his Next Media group is considered one of the key remaining bastions of media freedom. He was arrested in August when about 200 police officers raided the newsroom of his Apple Daily tabloid.
Lai was required to stay at home except to stand trial, and report his whereabouts to police three times a week. Lai was also asked to turn in his travel documents, Hong Kong news site on.cc reported.
According to the national security law for Hong Kong, the judge can grant bail to a defendant only when the judge believes the person will not strike again, Lawrence Ma, a barrister and chairman of the Hong Kong Legal Exchange Foundation, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
Lai’s bail conditions also include not meeting any foreign officials, not accepting interviews in any form (television and social media), not publishing articles directly and indirectly to call for foreign sanctions on Hong Kong, media reported.
Lai, 73, who has been in custody since Dec. 3, is also charged with fraud related to the lease of a building that houses Apple Daily.
The security law — which punishes what Beijing broadly defines as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in jail — has been condemned by the West and human rights groups as a tool to crush dissent in the semi-autonomous, Chinese-ruled city.
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