This December, as part of an ongoing publishing partnership with The Detroit News, Eric Kohn, Acton’s director of communications, wrote a piece on the imprisonment of entrepreneur and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai.
Kohn begins by sharing Lai’s backstory. Lai fled communist China as a 12-year-old refugee and began working, and sleeping, in a textile factory. Nevertheless, he quickly capitalized on the many opportunities Hong Kong presented him. Lai built a wildly successful clothing company and various media businesses, and by age 59 he was a billionaire.
Later, Kohn shares the tragic news of Lai’s recent arrests. “Apple Daily, the newspaper that Lai built from the ground up and that became the leading pro-democracy voice in Hong Kong, has been shuttered for violating far-reaching Chinese Communist Party rules that allow the CCP to silence dissent,” writes Kohn.
On Dec. 13, Lai was sentenced to 13 months in prison for his participation in a banned vigil for the victims of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. This was in addition to the 14-month sentence he received on May 28 for helping organize an unauthorized pro-democracy rally. While the details are distressing, Kohn provides hope. “Lai remains strongly rooted: first in his fervent Catholic faith, and second in his unshakable support of freedom.” Kohn adds: “The Chinese government wants him silenced, but Jimmy Lai’s fight in Hong Kong is far from done.”
