{"id":73543,"date":"2025-08-21T00:23:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T15:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/aug\/20\/jimmy-lai-unwavering-intent-to-solicit-foreign-sanctions-hong-kong-court-told"},"modified":"2025-08-21T00:23:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T15:23:24","slug":"supporting-freedom-of-expression-is-not-wrong-jimmy-lais-lawyer-tells-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=73543","title":{"rendered":"Supporting freedom of expression is not wrong, Jimmy Lai\u2019s lawyer tells court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Closing arguments made in Hong Kong media mogul\u2019s national security trial, which has lasted more than 140 days<\/p>\n<p>A lawyer for Jimmy Lai has argued that it is not wrong to support freedom of expression, as he began his final argument in the prominent Hong Kong democracy activist and newspaper founder\u2019s landmark national security trial.<\/p>\n<p>The barrister Robert Pang is representing Lai in his fight against charges of colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiring with others to issue seditious publications. Lai, 77, faces up to life in prison if convicted under a national security law imposed by Beijing after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/aug\/18\/hong-kong-huge-rally-china-condemns-us-gross-interference\">anti-government protests in 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/aug\/20\/jimmy-lai-unwavering-intent-to-solicit-foreign-sanctions-hong-kong-court-told\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Closing arguments made in Hong Kong media mogul\u2019s national security trial, which has lasted more than 140 daysA lawyer for Jimmy Lai has argued that it is not wrong to support freedom of expression, as he began his final argument in the prominent Hong &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4899,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,48,3034,238,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-hong-kong","category-jimmy-lai","category-media","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4899"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73544,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73543\/revisions\/73544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}