BREAKING: Trump to ask Xi to release Catholic Founder of pro-Democracy Apple Daily
President Trump issued statement on Jimmy Lai to members of the White House Press Corps during Q & A, a short while ago.
Jimmy Lai — the Catholic founder of Hong Kong’s now-suppressed pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily — has long stood as one of the most recognizable symbols of resistance to the Chinese Communist Party’s tightening grip over Hong Kong.
A convert to Catholicism and outspoken critic of Beijing, the now-78 year old Lai repeatedly framed the defense of liberty as not merely political activism, but a moral duty— rooted in human dignity, truth, conscience and freedom of Religion. His arrest and prosecution under Hong Kong’s (read Chinese Communist Party) National Security Law became emblematic of the dismantling of the territory’s once-promised freedoms under the “One Country, Two Systems” framework.