Speaker 1: So fifteen to twenty police officers rocked up at our
Speaker 1: house around five six am. They knocked, OneD or went in,
Speaker 1: checked my father in cuffs and the proceededs had take
Speaker 1: him to his offices the Apple Daily officers where two
Speaker 1: hundred police officers were there who had readed the Apple
Speaker 1: Daily officer as well, and preaded him around like he
Speaker 1: was some criminal in cuffs.
Speaker 2: This is Sebastian Lie. And one morning in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: he woke up to see missed phone calls filling his phone.
Speaker 2: His dad, Jimmy Laie, had just been arrested. Jimmy is
Speaker 2: a well known newspaper tycoony in Hong Kong. His newspaper,
Speaker 2: Apple Daily, was the most popular newspaper in Hong Kong,
Speaker 2: read by over nine million people every month. Was also
Speaker 2: known for a strong stance on political freedoms. So when
Speaker 2: the Chinese government cracked down on pro democracy protesters, Apple
Speaker 2: Daily was the top target.
Speaker 1: And you know our journalists who were incredibly brave, many
Speaker 1: of them live streamed it, and when they were taught
Speaker 1: to stop, some of the female journalists went to the
Speaker 1: bathroom and actually kept live updating it from their bathroom.
Speaker 3: Apple Daily live streamed the raid from its roof as
Speaker 3: hundreds of police rifled through the newsroom a few floors below.
Speaker 3: In all, five executives, including three editors, were arrested.
Speaker 1: The people of Hong Kong lined up to buy Apple
Speaker 1: Daily the next day, and there's this incredibly moving story
Speaker 1: where one of the people in the queue was interviewed
Speaker 1: and he was asked, you know now that Apple Daily
Speaker 1: has essentially been made illegal, are you still going to
Speaker 1: buy it? And he turns around and he says, I'll
Speaker 1: buy it even if it was white piece of paper.
Speaker 2: From Chauce Media don Rick Morton, and this is seven am.
Speaker 2: Sebastian Lai has taken up the cause of convincing political
Speaker 2: leaders to fight for his father's release from a Hong
Speaker 2: Kong prison. He's now in Australia trying to persuade our
Speaker 2: parliament to use whatever power it has to convince China. Today,
Speaker 2: Sebastian tells the story of his father, Jimmy, and how
Speaker 2: he went from media tycoon to political prisoner. That's coming
Speaker 2: up after the break. Tell me about your dad, because
Speaker 2: Jimmy is central to your story obviously, but also to
Speaker 2: the democratic in Hong Kong. Tell me about his last story.
Speaker 2: How did he end up in Hong Kong in the
Speaker 2: first place.
Speaker 1: So it's quite a beautiful story. He was born in
Speaker 1: mainland China a few years before the Communists came, and
Speaker 1: when they came, his father left and his mum was
Speaker 1: put in a re educational camp. So he was really
Speaker 1: the man in the family at a very young age,
Speaker 1: you know, five six years old and yet to take
Speaker 1: care of his siblings. And so he eventually went to
Speaker 1: work at a train station when he was nine or
Speaker 1: ten years old. You know how people carry luggages, and
Speaker 1: one day this very well dressed man turned around and
Speaker 1: gave him a half easting bar of chocolate. Now he
Speaker 1: had never seen chocolate before, known of it at all,
Speaker 1: but he was very hungry. So he turns around and
Speaker 1: eats it, and for him it was a religious experienced event.
Speaker 1: And actually he chases after man and says, excuse me,
Speaker 1: where are you from? And then man turns around and says,
Speaker 1: one from Hong Kong. And so Dad thinks to himself, well,
Speaker 1: if chuckol this from Hong Kong, then Hong Kong must
Speaker 1: be heaven and I will go there one day. So,
Speaker 1: you know, he keeps his promise to himself, and at twelve,
Speaker 1: he managers to smuggle Hong Kong and the first day
Speaker 1: he arrives, he starts working in a glove factory. But
Speaker 1: he's always told me that even though he had nothing
Speaker 1: at that point, even maybe less than nothing, because he
Speaker 1: owed money to the smugglers, he felt like he was
Speaker 1: in heaven because he finally had a future, and he
Speaker 1: worked his way up from the glove factory. Eventually he
Speaker 1: goes to start his own textile manufacturer.
Speaker 4: In the history of communist China, there has never been
Speaker 4: anything like this.
Speaker 1: Eventually, though, in nineteen eighty nine, there are protests happening
Speaker 1: all across China.
Speaker 4: In the dead of night, two thousand students marched through
Speaker 4: the streets of Beijing calling for democracy, human rights, and
Speaker 4: the resignation of the Chinese government.
Speaker 1: But obviously, as we now know with the hindsight of history,
Speaker 1: the Tenant Square massacre happened, and that was heartbreaking for
Speaker 1: him and many people actually, and for Dad, it was
Speaker 1: his political awakening. He realized that that he needed to
Speaker 1: do something to defend the freedoms of Hong Kong, as
Speaker 1: Hong Kong was going to be handed over to the
Speaker 1: Chinese in nineteen ninety seven by the British, and so
Speaker 1: he found the Next Magazine and then Apple Daily. You know,
Speaker 1: with the idea that a lot of newspapers had to
Speaker 1: rely started self censoring, that Apple Daily wasn't going to
Speaker 1: self censor.
Speaker 5: Jimmy Lai resigned from the board of Giordano, but two
Speaker 5: years before the handover, he was on the offensive again,
Speaker 5: this time with the Apple Daily crime, gossip and scandal
Speaker 5: plus a crusade for freedom and democracy.
Speaker 1: It was going to speak truth to power and have
Speaker 1: a very pro democracy editorial.
Speaker 2: Hong Kong is our home. Hong Kong's where we want
Speaker 2: to protect the freedom. I don't give a shit what
Speaker 2: happened in China. This is my home.
Speaker 1: And that's what it was for the next thirty years.
Speaker 4: What are you trying to say with this headline, Well,
Speaker 4: just saying, and it's very praying.
Speaker 2: You know, we don't want to be slave, you know,
Speaker 2: we want to have the freedom we want to have.
Speaker 1: And it also became the most popular newspaper in Hong
Speaker 1: Kong and Taiwan, and so you know, he's faced multiple
Speaker 1: harassment throughout the years, including fire bombs people following him
Speaker 1: death threats. You know, in Taiwan, for example, someone skinned
Speaker 1: a dog and pin the the Todds or because obviously,
Speaker 1: not only did he offend the Chinese Communist Party, he
Speaker 1: also wasn't afraid to offend triads and mobsters and whatnot.
Speaker 1: So a whole colorful bunch of people.
Speaker 2: And you know, given everything that you went through as
Speaker 2: a kid, watching you know, people fight back against your father,
Speaker 2: I mean you say it like it's a normal thing,
Speaker 2: right to have a dog skinned and attached to the door.
Speaker 2: What was that like watching that? Did it feel normal
Speaker 2: to you at the time? What did you even know
Speaker 2: as a kid that this was not right?
Speaker 1: So obviously I knew that it was a very unique experience,
Speaker 1: you know, because we had people following us twenty four
Speaker 1: to seven, essentially cass parked outside and people taking a
Speaker 1: picture of us as soon as we went back home.
Speaker 1: But I never felt like I had a bad or
Speaker 1: a normal childhood because Dad never put it home. You know,
Speaker 1: even though people would try to scare him and intimidate him,
Speaker 1: My father was never scared or intimidated. He actually had
Speaker 1: always had a very good line about the cheapest weapon
Speaker 1: that an autocratic regime has on you is fear, because
Speaker 1: once they know that you're scared, they could call you,
Speaker 1: and once they call you, they could always call you.
Speaker 1: So he never felt scared and he was never count
Speaker 1: He didn't act out of self preservation. He acted because
Speaker 1: he knew that the Company for Democracy, for free speech,
Speaker 1: for Impressed was just the right thing to do. Eventually, though,
Speaker 1: having been a thorn in the government's side for so
Speaker 1: many years, they passed this National Security Law at the
Speaker 1: end of twenty twenties.
Speaker 4: Beijing says it will bring stability to a city that
Speaker 4: was home to massive democracy protests. The law criminalizes acts
Speaker 4: of subversion, succession, collision with foreign forces, and terrorism. All
Speaker 4: can be punished by life in prison.
Speaker 1: Critics, the National Security Law is actually criminalizes or dissent
Speaker 1: and all expressions of democracy. And under the guise of
Speaker 1: this law, they arrested my father, raided his newspapers, and
Speaker 1: arrested his colleagues, and he's been in jail since the
Speaker 1: end of twenty twenty so for more than three and
Speaker 1: a half years, and at seventy six, he now faces
Speaker 1: the possibility of life imprisonment.
Speaker 2: After the break, Well's the best in Blaze Australia could
Speaker 2: be key to train his father.
Speaker 1: It's really this case about, you know, a man who
Speaker 1: sacrificed everything he has to campaign for democracy.
Speaker 2: Welcome back. Jimmy Lai has now been in prison in
Speaker 2: Hong Kong since December twenty twenty, arrested under the controversial
Speaker 2: new National Security Law and awaiting trial. These laws were
Speaker 2: passed in twenty nineteen to quell pro democracy protests spreading
Speaker 2: across Hong Kong, and for Sebastian, the charges his father
Speaker 2: is facing, well, they've done more than just put him
Speaker 2: in jail. They have even radically changed his home and
Speaker 2: what's it possible there.
Speaker 1: They made a very deliberate decision to weaponize the Hong
Speaker 1: Kong legal system. So it's a textbook show trial. There's
Speaker 1: three government appointed judges, no jury. The Minister of Security
Speaker 1: essentially hints it at my father's guilty before the start
Speaker 1: of the trial, which is not how trials work. And
Speaker 1: so that's just targeting my father obviously. But what makes
Speaker 1: it especially heartbreaking and pernicious is that they arrested my
Speaker 1: father's colleagues who have been in prison for more than
Speaker 1: two years now. They haven't been charged yet. They're getting
Speaker 1: charged at the end of my father's trial so that
Speaker 1: they could testify against my father. There's also been reports
Speaker 1: by the Washington Posts of torture of some of the
Speaker 1: people testifying against my father, the reports of them being
Speaker 1: tortured by the government in order to testify. So it's
Speaker 1: a very new tactic for Hong Kong. But it's something
Speaker 1: that photogratic regime have used. But how Hong Kong using it.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because they're still trying to have this veneer
Speaker 1: of rule of law when obviously that is no longer
Speaker 1: the case. I mean, if you ask the Hong Kong
Speaker 1: government today, they'll still tell you that they have the
Speaker 1: free press. But if you google Apple Daily raids, you
Speaker 1: see five hundred running into a newsroom. And that's not
Speaker 1: the image of free press. No, no, it's not.
Speaker 2: And of course I mean this is in some respects
Speaker 2: the world away from Australia, and in other respects it's
Speaker 2: really close to home. You're leading the campaign to have
Speaker 2: your father Fred, and no doubt to hope that sparks
Speaker 2: the domino effect of releasing his colleagues as well.
Speaker 1: Hello, I know I come at a interesting time for
Speaker 1: Australia with relationships throwing in China. So my father's story
Speaker 1: to some is a uncomfortable and inconvenient one, but to
Speaker 1: some others, I hope is an enlightening one. Enlightening one.
Speaker 2: What role do you hope that Australia can play to
Speaker 2: bring your dad's case to the attention of our government
Speaker 2: or to authorities that can have him released.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'll be incredibly grateful if Australia joins
Speaker 1: the corps for his release. The US Court for is
Speaker 1: immediate and condition of release. The UK government has as well,
Speaker 1: so has both houses of the Canadian parliaments, and it's
Speaker 1: European parliaments and multiple and special rappertoires. So there's an
Speaker 1: international cor for his release, and I hope it astraated
Speaker 1: to join that call, and it's by putting pressure on
Speaker 1: the Hong Kong government to do right by its people
Speaker 1: that we could see my father and other political prisoners
Speaker 1: are released. Because look, the Hong Kong's a financial center,
Speaker 1: right If you're from Australia, UK, US and you're doing
Speaker 1: business there, you need to trust in the system for
Speaker 1: a financial center to function, and that trust is no
Speaker 1: longer there and so it's important for governments to highlight
Speaker 1: that and to put pressure on the Hong Kong government
Speaker 1: so that it returns to a place that has these freedoms.
Speaker 1: But they can't say that they have these freedoms when
Speaker 1: they have a thousand and eight hundred political prisoners in
Speaker 1: jail because they supported democracy, which again is a view
Speaker 1: that most people from from the countries that I mentioned hold.
Speaker 1: It's a very foundation of Australia, US UK and one
Speaker 1: of these values that my father has has fought for.
Speaker 1: And you guys recently got the Chinese journalist changed layout
Speaker 1: and that makes me immensely hopeful. It's important to have
Speaker 1: meaningful engagement with China. You know, China's one of the
Speaker 1: biggest conomies you have to trade with China. But you
Speaker 1: should never trade your freedom of speech with the dignity
Speaker 1: of your people.
Speaker 6: In cases I mean, Jimmy Leis case is the most
Speaker 6: I think he's got one of the most inspiring stories
Speaker 6: in terms of a success story in Hong Kong, a
Speaker 6: successful businessman who stood up against and spoke truth to power,
Speaker 6: and he's being targeted for it, and I think it's.
Speaker 2: I think it's correct to say that you're working with
Speaker 2: Jennifer Robinson now, who is just just being done for
Speaker 2: Juliana Science very casually. Yeah, like it's you know, or
Speaker 2: work before breakfast.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I want to make clear that that I ask of
Speaker 6: the Australian government is a very modest one. The British government,
Speaker 6: the US government, our allies have already called for his release.
Speaker 5: They would be.
Speaker 2: Doing what I hope do you have that, you know,
Speaker 2: working with Jennifer will be able to create at least
Speaker 2: some of the same conditions for your father's release.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're working with Jennifer and so yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's we're very hopeful. You know. I saw the picture
Speaker 1: of Julian on the tarmac with his with his wife
Speaker 1: and it really makes me miss my father a lot.
Speaker 1: And then then the end of the day that I
Speaker 1: see him again.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask, just as we end, how
Speaker 2: your father is doing and he have you seen him?
Speaker 1: So because I speak out on his behalf, I haven't
Speaker 1: been able to go by Hong Kong. I think there's
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of strength in a person who knows
Speaker 1: that he's doing the right thing. But there's also you know,
Speaker 1: biology at his age seventy six. Now, I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody would have blamed him if he left Hong Kong,
Speaker 1: you know, before the crackdowns, but he didn't. Then he
Speaker 1: decided to stay, and I'm so incredibly proud of that
Speaker 1: that he stood, you know, by the side of his people,
Speaker 1: by the side of his journals. So yeah, I think
Speaker 1: he knows he's doing the right thing, and I think
Speaker 1: that's giving him a lot of strength. But obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: given his age, I think that the situation, his health,
Speaker 1: situation could change very quickly, even though psychologically he remains
Speaker 1: incredibly strong.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, the best in life for joining us.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 6: Rick.
Speaker 2: Also in the news today, the Federal Labor Caucus has
Speaker 2: unanimously voted in support of Anthony Albanesi's decision to suspend
Speaker 2: Senator Fatima Payman, according to reports from Tuesday's party room meeting,
Speaker 2: but whether she leaves the Labor Party or is permanently
Speaker 2: expelled remains a question. Payman said in a statement later
Speaker 2: on Monday that she had been exiled, saying that she'd
Speaker 2: been cut off from the internal Labor Party conversations and
Speaker 2: would use the weeks ahead to think about how best
Speaker 2: to serve the people of Western Australia and budget airline
Speaker 2: bondser will be liquidated, with workers owed to some ten
Speaker 2: point eight million dollars in wages and entitlements. Administrators had
Speaker 2: been hopeful of securing a rescue deal with a buyer,
Speaker 2: but the sudden repossession of its entire fleet of aircraft
Speaker 2: in May left little value for any prospective buyer. And
Speaker 2: Rick Morton this is of an n ame See tomorrow
Speaker 3: HM