00:00Jimmy Lai believes information can set people free.
00:04A media mogul and one of Hong Kong's most prominent champions of democracy,
00:07he spent decades speaking out even as Beijing tightened its grip,
00:12taking on the Chinese Communist Party in a way no other member of the city's elite did.
00:16And, like the city he so loves, he's now been silenced,
00:20locked away most likely for the rest of his life.
00:23And it's incredibly heartbreaking because all of this is a punishment
00:33because he decided to stand up for what is right to campaign for democracy and freedom
00:38and to defend press freedom and defend his colleagues.
00:41Jimmy Lai's story is very much Hong Kong's own story.
00:44He fled Mao's China as a boy and made his fortune in the fashion industry as Hong Kong boomed.
00:50But he saw that the city's fragile freedom and democracy needed a voice.
00:54His newspaper, Apple Daily, became that voice.
00:58It was this crazy mixture of investigative reporting, stock market tips,
01:03paparazzi scandal and an unremitting focus on freedom. Free people, free markets.
01:10It was everything that made Hong Kong different from mainland China.
01:13But speaking out made him a target.
01:15He was accused of colluding with foreign forces against the Chinese government.
01:19As Beijing crushed the 2019 pro-democracy protests, his newsroom was raided,
01:24him and his editors jailed, Apple Daily shut down.
01:27A landmark trial followed and Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
01:32As a British passport holder, he had every chance to leave Hong Kong.
01:36But he refused.
01:50Jimmy Lai isn't just a publisher. He showed up. In the rain, on the streets, standing shoulder to shoulder
01:55with the tens of thousands who believed Hong Kong could be better.
02:01It's a belief he is now paying for with his freedom.
02:03So that it haséc
02:05to be, to be, to be, to be a person for be, to be a person for a protest.
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