Jimmy Lai says ‘continuous lobbying required to gain support from foreigners’

Next Digital founder Jimmy Lai Chee-ying said Hongkongers must continue lobbying to gain support from foreigners, when he was asked to respond in his column to the question of what people can do to gain international support in 2019.

Lai, 76, continued to defend himself for a third day in his national security trial at West Kowloon Magistrates' Court on Friday. 

The defense presented in court an article written by Jimmy Lai and published in Apple Daily on October 27, 2019, titled "What Americans want to tell us." The defense also brought up Lai's message sent on October 24, 2019, to then-associate publisher of Apple Daily, Chan Pui-man, where Lai requested Chan to come up with a set of questions asking him about the situation in Hong Kong at the time and his lobbying trip to Washington for his column.

In his column, Lai mentioned the need for continuous lobbying to gain foreigners’ support, but he clarified that he had no intention of incitement, only expressing what he believed to be the truth and suggesting that the anti-extradition bill movement should move away from violence and towards non-violent means.

Meanwhile, the defense cited the prosecution's argument that the article incited hatred among Hong Kong people towards the central government or the SAR government. Lai, however, denied such claims and said the lobbying was not about requesting foreign sanctions against China or Hong Kong.