Hong Kong: Media tycoon Jimmy Lai gets 13 months jail for Tiananmen vigil

Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to 13 months in jail for participating in a vigil marking the Tiananmen massacre.

The 74-year-old was found guilty last week for inciting others to take part in an unlawful assembly.

Lai was among thousands who defied a ban to attend a vigil last June commemorating the 1989 crackdown in Beijing.

More than two dozen politicians and activists have been charged over it.

Lai was one of eight activists who had their sentences handed down today, which included prominent names like journalist-turned-opposition politician Gwyneth Ho and lawyer Chow Hang Tung.

The sentences for the eight range from four-and-a-half months to 14 months.

Judge Amanda Woodcock delivered the sentence following a mitigation hearing, in which Lai's lawyers presented a handwritten letter he had penned from prison.

In the letter, Lai said he was willing to suffer the penalties of his decision.

"If commemorating those who died because of injustice is a crime, then inflict on me that crime and let me suffer the punishment ... so I may share the burden and glory of those young men and women who shed their blood on June 4," Lai wrote.

Earlier in the trial, Lai had argued that he had lit candles during the vigil in a personal capacity, and had not "incited" others to join the unauthorised rally.

However Judge Woodcock dismissed the arguments, and said their participation "was an act of defiance and protest against the police".

Lai, who is already serving a prison sentence for an earlier charge, will serve his latest sentence concurrently.

He is the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper in Hong Kong, and has been one of the most prominent supporters of the city's pro-democracy movement.

The annual vigil has taken place in Hong Kong for decades, often attracting tens of thousands who gather to mark the anniversary of Chinese troops crushing peaceful democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989. International condemnation ensued after troops and tanks opened fire on protesters.

Hong Kong used to be one of the very few places in China where the incident could still be commemorated or even talked about - it is highly sensitive in mainland China, which bans any events marking the incident and scrubs mentions from social media.

But in 2020 Hong Kong authorities banned the vigil for the first time in 30 years, citing Covid restrictions. Activists accused officials of bowing to pressure from Beijing to muzzle pro-democracy expression.

Tens of thousands of people defied the ban to attend the vigil that night, knocking down barricades that had been erected around Hong Kong's Victoria Park.

The ban on the vigil continued this year, and saw a more muted protest.