Hong Kong courts have sentenced the longtime pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai to 20 years’ in prison. This sentencing is symbolic of the continued attempts to crush the enabling environment for civil society in Hong Kong and to systematically destroy civic freedoms and the space for cultural exchange.
Although the Hong Kong courts are supposed to be independent of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but this independence has been called into question, particularly in cases involving the National Security Law. China’s National People’s Congress imposed the National Security Law in June 2020 criminalising acts of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces. According to the Hong Kong government, a total of 332 people had been arrested for national security offences in June 2025 since the adoption of the Law in June 2020.
Mr. Lai was sentenced under the National Security Law and he was found guilty of two national security charges and one charge of sedition. Mr. Lai had been in custody since December 31, 2020, prior to his sentencing.
Mr. Lai, the founder of Apple Daily news, had been under scrutiny for years. In August of 2025, the EUSEE received alerts stating that independent bookstores in Hong Kong, such as ‘Book Punch’ had been forced to cancel numerous events due to anonymous and false complaints suggesting that selling books like the “Jimmy Lai biography” […] “smear the government and National Security Law.” This followed accusations of “soft resistance” against Hong Kong’s annual independent book fair in July 2025. The Beijing-backed newspaper Wen Wei Po published a front-page report under the banner “Cracking Down on Soft Resistance,” accusing the book fair of promoting an “atmosphere of soft resistance” by selling books with messages that “oppose China and disturb Hong Kong.”
Six editors of Apple Daily news were also given severe sentences under a clause of the Law that enables courts to impose harsh severe penalties for infringements that are deemed to involve foreign elements. The editors have received prison sentences equivalent to Professor Benny Tai in the Hong Kong 47 case (subversion).
These sentences appear to be vindictive and follow a pattern of the CCP tightening its grip over Hong Kong. The conviction of the father of exiled and wanted activist Anna Kwok is also in the same vein; penalising any connection between those inside Hong Kong and those who left to try to continue the fight for democracy.
This sentence follows a long line of alerts received by the EUSEE, in which the CCP has deployed various tactics, from legal to administrative and bureaucratic, to silence critics and neuter political pluralism in Hong Kong. These tactics include content removals, and performance cancellations.
In January 2025, a student organiser, Miles Kwan Ching-Fung, creator of a petition demanding an independent investigation into the fatal Tai Po fire, was arrested for sedition by the National Security Department, under the same law. This arrest is part of the brutal and authoritarian crackdown on innocent civilians. On February 13, Miles revealed on social media that after being suspended twice and studying intermittently for six years, he received notice that his student status had been terminated.
On the day he was granted bail, the university requested that he attend a disciplinary hearing on the grounds of suspected misconduct. The disciplinary committee issued demerits based on the following:
1. Mailes is accused of leaking confidential information that could damage the university’s reputation.
2. The use of insulting language in emails.
3. An “impolite and disrespectful” attitude during the hearing.
These latest marks, accumulated with his previous demerits, resulted in his expulsion.
According to the EUSEE snapshot report on Hong Kong, the continued prosecution of activists as well as the commencement of the trial of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, may escalate repression. Funding restrictions and new legal amendments will make organising even more difficult, further isolating independent organisations.
International advocacy remains a pressure point, limiting the Government’s ability to enact extreme measures. Diaspora groups provide external platforms for addressing Hong Kong issues. In the above cases the damage has already done; it is likely that Mr. Lai will die in prison.
According to one of our network members, these severe penalties are “very threatening and will escalate the isolation of Hong Kong.”