New Delhi: I am a journalist so you can call me biased. But I think this year’s Nobel Peace Prize should go to Jimmy Lai, owner of Apple Daily in Hong Kong. He should be given this reward for going to jail in support of free speech and human rights. Usually billionaires lie down in front of dictators. The reason for this is that they have much to lose and little to gain by showing the mirror of truth to power. But Jimmy Lai rejected his billions of wealth for a truth and went to jail. When Britain handed Hong Kong over to China in 1997, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping said that Hong Kong’s system of civil rights and independent institutions would remain intact for 50 years. This was part of Deng’s One Country, Two Systems policy. Jimmy Lai had reminded this promise of Deng to the Chinese government. Such promises do not have much importance. Chinese leader Xi Jinping felt that Hong Kong’s system was too free and could not be tolerated. When he took action against the whistleblowers, few were surprised. The people of Hong Kong started a protest. Thousands of people came on the streets with open umbrellas. Most of the newspapers followed the line of the Chinese government. But Apple Daily openly supported this protest. Lai himself wrote articles against the Chinese government.
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Especially he was very angry with the National Security Act of 2020. Under this law, the government was given the right to arrest anyone in the name of national security. According to this, trying to undermine any authority of the central government will be considered a crime. Lai was also told to desist from criticizing the government. But he said demanding that Deng fulfill his promise is not treason. He knew the consequences but was not deterred by it at all. The government shut down his newspaper and arrested him last year. But the 75-year-old Lai stuck to his word.
Click here to read Swaminath SA Iyer’s full article.
