The piercing sound of a whistle reduce by the calm. A speedboat, carrying 5 or 6 uniformed males, all armed, pulled alongside. They ordered the boat’s driver to show off the engine. A second, a lot larger vessel quickly arrived — “CHINESE COAST GUARD” in daring lettering on its facet — making clear what they already knew: It was over.
A 12 months earlier than, mass protests had erupted of their metropolis, turning these younger Hong Kongers into avenue fighters and worldwide advocates. After Beijing handed a draconian new nationwide safety regulation that may crush the territory’s remaining freedoms and impose lengthy jail sentences on pro-democracy activists, they tried to flee — solely to be apprehended in worldwide waters by China. The account of their seize at sea is described right here for the primary time from courtroom paperwork obtained by The Washington Publish and other people accustomed to how the occasion unfolded.
Amongst these on board was a person who would quickly emerge for Beijing as a prized seize: Andy Li Yu-hin. Greater than three years later, his place within the remaking of Hong Kong in China’s picture is changing into clear.
On Monday, Hong Kong’s highest profile trial for the reason that 2020 crackdown will start. Li’s testimony might be key to the federal government’s case in opposition to Jimmy Lai, the billionaire media mogul and founding father of Apple Every day, the impartial newspaper that has now been shut down. Lai is charged below the nationwide safety regulation with “colluding with overseas forces.” The Hong Kong authorities will use the prosecution to color a story of the 2019 protests as a U.S.-directed plot aimed toward destabilizing China, as an alternative of the grass-roots-organized demonstrations they have been, attorneys and analysts accustomed to the case say.
Li, a 33-year-old gifted programmer who in the course of the protests turned a big participant in worldwide lobbying and fundraising efforts, has already pleaded responsible below the nationwide safety regulation for his personal function within the democracy motion, and he’s anticipated to tie Lai to an alleged overseas conspiracy in opposition to Hong Kong and China.
However Li was mistreated whereas in Chinese language custody, a year-long Washington Publish examination of the case discovered, elevating questions on whether or not his testimony might be voluntary and dependable. The Publish’s reporting reveals beforehand undisclosed particulars concerning the coercive therapy of the 12 escapees, particularly Li, by Chinese language authorities, and Li’s reemergence and continued detention in Hong Kong after seven months of isolation in China.
“They’ve a plot line, a sort of story,” mentioned Beatrice Li, Andy’s sister, of the prosecution. “And they should match the characters in.”
This story attracts on courtroom paperwork from each Hong Kong and mainland China, CCTV footage and letters from jail obtained or reviewed by The Publish, as nicely interviews with a number of folks accustomed to the experiences of these on the boat and their detention on the mainland, and with folks near each Li and Lai. Some folks spoke on the situation of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case or as a result of they feared for their very own safety; most spoke solely to The Publish. They mentioned they agreed to be interviewed as a result of they concern the case might be used to rewrite the narrative of Hong Kong’s 2019 protests and wished a historic document of the info.
The confluence of occasions that introduced the mogul and the previous activist collectively as defendant and witness is testomony to how far the independence of town’s courts has eroded for the reason that nationwide safety regulation was imposed by Beijing in June 2020, attorneys and democracy activists say — and the way the Hong Kong courts now resemble the system of justice in mainland China the place coerced testimony is routinely used to safe convictions. Hong Kong police have began airing confessions from jailed protesters on tv, mirroring the long-established apply of public, compelled confessions in China.
“We don’t have any religion within the course of inside Hong Kong,” mentioned Caoilfhionn Gallagher, the Irish human rights lawyer who leads Lai’s worldwide authorized staff. “Jimmy Lai is being prosecuted below a regulation which shouldn’t exist, in a system which has grow to be profoundly unfair.”
Lai’s Hong Kong-based authorized staff declined to remark, citing a apply of not talking forward of trials.
Lai, 76, has already been convicted of different crimes, together with illegal meeting and fraud, however the nationwide safety cost is essentially the most severe, punishable by as much as life in jail. Imprisoned since December 2020, he spends 23 hours a day in solitary confinement.
A spokesman for the Hong Kong authorities, in a written response to questions from The Publish, mentioned all prosecutorial selections by the Hong Kong Division of Justice “are based mostly on admissible proof” and that Hong Kong “enjoys impartial judicial energy” with courts and judges who’re “free from any interference.”
“Circumstances won’t ever be dealt with any otherwise owing to the career, political views or background of the individuals concerned,” the spokesman mentioned. “To counsel in any other case is utter nonsense with out regard to goal info.”
China’s nationwide public safety bureau and the Shenzhen municipal public safety bureau didn’t reply to requests for remark. China’s overseas ministry mentioned forward of the trial that “Jimmy Lai is likely one of the most infamous anti-China parts bent on destabilizing Hong Kong and a mastermind of the riots … chargeable for quite a few egregious acts.”
Pending his look as a witness, Li is being held in a Hong Kong psychiatric facility and couldn’t be reached for remark; different prosecution witnesses in delicate trials are additionally detained at this secluded unit. Li, who has grow to be a religious Christian in his time in detention, spends his days studying languages — Ukrainian and Arabic are his present focus — fixing crossword puzzles and reciting Psalms, in keeping with folks accustomed to his state of affairs.
A brand new, leaderless type of protest
Jimmy Lai’s story is lore in Hong Kong. Many within the metropolis can recite how he arrived within the metropolis as a stowaway from China when he was 12, toiling as a toddler laborer in a garment manufacturing facility, solely to finally discovered a well-liked clothes model of his personal, after which direct his wealth towards pro-democracy causes. It was the June 4, 1989, crackdown on Tiananmen Sq. in Beijing that prompted his flip to media. It was “the enterprise of freedom, of delivering freedom,” Lai mentioned in a 2016 interview. In 1995, as Hong Kong’s handover to China approached, he based Apple Every day along with his personal cash.
Andy Li’s childhood was, against this, unexceptional. He was raised by mother and father who have been apolitical. His household didn’t attend the yearly vigil commemorating the June 4 bloodbath. The Li household believed it was higher to “simply dwell your personal life,” Beatrice Li mentioned, “and simply don’t become involved.”
As Li grew, he most popular solitude, typically getting misplaced in books and his laptop. He shortly emerged as a gifted scholar, incomes a spot on the prestigious Diocesan Boys’ College, a 154-year-old Anglican boys faculty. Li selected to remain within the metropolis for college, acquiring a bachelor’s of enterprise administration from the Chinese language College of Hong Kong. He additionally taught himself Japanese.
In June 2019, greater than 1,000,000 folks took to the streets to peacefully oppose a invoice that may permit the switch of fugitives from Hong Kong to locations it didn’t have an extradition treaty with — notably mainland China. Amongst Hong Kong’s most prized establishments have been its widespread regulation courts, the place defendants might be assured the precise to bail, a good trial, authorized illustration and different ensures absent on the mainland. The invoice threatened to erode the authorized firewall between the 2 territories.
As demonstrations roiled metropolis streets, apps corresponding to Telegram and the LIHKG on-line discussion board had grow to be an extension of the motion, locations the place strategies of resistance and new concepts have been debated and voted on by the collective. A gaggle of Hong Kong-based lecturers in a 2021 paper wrote that the LIHKG discussion board, particularly, contributed to the “energy and sustainability” of the motion and helped articulate justifications for extra “radical” ways. Li discovered his solution to the net group Stand With Hong Kong (SWHK), his colleagues mentioned, and have become one of many many younger Hong Kongers who have been driving this new, leaderless type of protest.
SWHK activists have been nameless, each to the world and — a minimum of initially — to at least one one other. They labored throughout cities and time zones. But, personalities began to emerge: Li’s as awkward, with jokes that by no means appeared to land, and as a workaholic who by no means slept.
“We’d typically tease him: ‘are you truly a pc?’” mentioned Catherine Li, a former member of SWHK who is just not associated to Andy.
SWHK grew right into a formidable lobbying power, targeted on worldwide advocacy. Info on what was underway in Hong Kong was translated and disseminated into totally different languages; Li was amongst those that helped with Japanese. SWHK launched a number of crowdfunding campaigns, which raised thousands and thousands for his or her work, together with to fund adverts supporting the protests in worldwide papers. The campaigns have been a serious success, however for one catch: The funds that have been raised on the web site GoFundMe wanted to be deposited in a U.S.-based checking account.
A number of the crowdfunded cash was transferred to the private checking account in New York of one in every of Lai’s executives, Mark Simon, an American, and finally to Andy Li’s private checking account in Hong Kong, in keeping with courtroom paperwork. Simon was then the group director for Subsequent Digital, Apple Every day’s mother or father firm.
Supporting the pro-democracy motion by the media “was what we have been doing all alongside,” mentioned Simon in an interview. Apple Every day would print tens of 1000’s of additional copies on vital protest days within the metropolis. “What these guys have been doing with the adverts … was a part of this system.”
Li, his colleagues and sister mentioned, was keen to play that function as a result of he felt financially impartial as a contract programmer, in contrast to others based mostly in Hong Kong who might be fired by their pro-government firms.
Li dropped his anonymity and have become a consultant of this decentralized motion in worldwide boards. He appeared in-person at a United Nations Human Rights Council assembly on China in Geneva in September 2019, and he helped set up an commentary mission forward of native elections in Hong Kong that November.
“If he’s already the one in danger, then let’s put all danger in that basket, relatively than introducing danger to another person,” Beatrice mentioned of her brother’s determination. On the time, nothing they have been doing was unlawful — not fundraising overseas, lobbying overseas governments or elevating consideration for the motion.
The temper began to shift in early 2020 because the pandemic ended momentum on the streets. With town quietened, Beijing handed the nationwide safety regulation, introducing 4 imprecise new crimes — secession, subversion, colluding with overseas forces and terrorism. On Aug. 9, 2020, nationwide safety police fanned out throughout town of their first sweep below the brand new order. Jimmy Lai and his two sons have been arrested, whereas lots of of officers raided the workplaces of Apple Every day.
Lai’s profile was so giant that few paid consideration to the others arrested that day. Amongst them was a person police named as Li Yu-hin. Family and friends simply known as him Andy.
Police in Hong Kong launched Li after the 48-hour necessary bail interval however held his passport. In addition they seized units from his residence — a number of laptops and telephones, and a doc with an inventory of Hong Kong officers that activists believed must be focused by U.S. sanctions.
The arrests shattered the world of Li and different activists. SWHK descended into infighting, believing the arrests had put the remainder of them — nonetheless nameless — in peril. Li’s sister Beatrice, who had publicly campaigned beside him, left Hong Kong. Li himself turned more and more agitated as he tried to discover a manner out of town with out his passport, colleagues mentioned.
“He was doing numerous issues he usually wouldn’t do, like giving out his private data to others. That’s not a typical Andy Li factor,” mentioned a former colleague at SWHK. In these weeks, the particular person mentioned, “Andy didn’t seem to be a robotic anymore … it turned out he was extra emotional than us.”
Since early 2020, some younger Hong Kong activists dealing with felony fees, aided by a bunch of volunteers, had began planning to depart Hong Kong for Taiwan by boat. The designated captain and a few others ready for the journey by training crusing out on the open seas. They pretended to be fishing lovers and bought rods, reels and hooks — but in addition satellite tv for pc telephones and binoculars.
Li and one other younger man turned last-minute entries, recognized to the group merely as “No. 11” and “No. 12,” in keeping with Chinese language courtroom paperwork.
Late on Aug. 22, Quinn Moon, the organizer of the operation and the one girl on the boat, advised the others they’d be leaving the following morning and to assemble on the Po Toi O pier, in keeping with Hong Kong courtroom paperwork. Moon is in jail in Hong Kong and couldn’t be reached for remark. CTV footage captured there simply after daybreak on Aug. 23, 2020, present a number of younger males with surgical masks, most in black T-shirts. They seemed like informal day-trippers — save for the heavy jerrycans of gasoline they carried.
Relentless interrogation in China
After the 12 have been intercepted, Chinese language coast guard officers introduced them onto the coast guard ship and handcuffed them. The temper within the cabin was despondent as they sailed north for over an hour. After they tried to whisper to at least one one other, the armed guards shouted at them to close up, in keeping with folks accustomed to the occasions.
After they landed, they have been bused to a police station, then to a hospital the place their blood was drawn, earlier than being taken to a detention heart in Yantian, a Shenzhen district separated from Hong Kong by only a slender inlet. They have been instantly separated and saved in single cells.
For the primary three months, in keeping with a number of folks accustomed to the circumstances, they have been confined to those solitary cells, the place two guards on shift took turns to look at them around-the-clock, at the same time as they went to the lavatory. The lights have been at all times on. Through the day, they have been compelled to sit down cross-legged on a concrete stool till their joints grew sore, besides throughout mealtimes or interrogations. Strolling across the cell was usually not permitted. At evening, they have been woke up at random hours, for no obvious purpose. They have been by no means allowed exterior.
The interrogations have been relentless throughout these preliminary months, the folks accustomed to the circumstances mentioned. Guards threatened to ship them to Xinjiang — the place the Chinese language authorities has arbitrarily detained greater than 1,000,000 Muslim Uyghurs and subjected them to torture, compelled sterilization, surveillance and different circumstances, in keeping with the United Nations — if they didn’t element their tried escape.
Most of 12 weren’t bodily abused, however seven folks accustomed to circumstances on the heart mentioned screaming may “constantly” be heard coming from one cell: Li’s.
“It’s possible that what [Li] confronted inside was 10 instances worse” than the remaining, one particular person mentioned.
After his arrest in Hong Kong and earlier than he boarded the boat, Li had entrusted somebody with managing his passwords, hoping they may get into his social media accounts and safe them ought to one thing go fallacious. When the particular person opened his Fb account, they noticed that it had been accessed after his detention in China. The time period “crowdfunding” had been entered in Fb’s search field, the particular person mentioned. “They have been already on the lookout for these hyperlinks, that monetary hyperlink,” the particular person added.
In Hong Kong, distinguished activists corresponding to Joshua Wong took up the reason for these detained in mainland China. Hashtags corresponding to #save12 and #bringthemback went viral within the metropolis. Beatrice began an account on Twitter, renamed to X this 12 months, below the username “andy_is_missing” to boost consciousness about her brother’s plight.
Li’s household acquired their first letter from him in late November 2020. Li wrote that he was “neither bullied nor crushed up” and that he had “employed a lawyer” who helped him navigate authorized procedures within the mainland. To Beatrice, he wrote: “don’t proceed what you might be doing, it’s time to cease.”
“I’ve mirrored right here, noticed the state of affairs extra clearly, and there’s no future in carrying on,” Li wrote. “Have a look, I’m an instance.”
Members of the family of the 11 others acquired letters that contained comparable wordings or phrases, significantly because it associated to the circumstances in detention.
Moon and the driving force of the boat, Tang Kai-yin, have been charged as organizers of the escape and sentenced to 2 and three years in jail respectively. Eight, together with Li, have been charged with illegally crossing into China and sentenced to seven months; two minors within the group have been returned to Hong Kong. All “voluntarily” pleaded responsible, in keeping with mainland courtroom paperwork.
Colluding with overseas forces
Chan Tsz-wah, a former colleague of Li’s, was nonetheless asleep at residence in February 2021 when Hong Kong police knocked on his door. He barely had time to dress earlier than they declared he was below arrest below the safety regulation. Jimmy Lai, already in jail, was rearrested, accused of helping in Li’s escape.
As they interrogated him, nationwide safety police advised Chan that Li had “betrayed” his mates and advised mainland police “every little thing, about everybody,” in keeping with an individual accustomed to the matter.
Li was returned to Hong Kong by mainland authorities on March 22, 2021, and brought to the Siu Lam Psychiatric Middle. Li’s household was unable to safe him impartial authorized illustration, his sister mentioned, and he continues to be represented by attorneys who’ve sturdy authorities ties.
A 2021 paper by the Middle for Asian Legislation at Georgetown College pinpointed Li’s case as echoing “the apply of manipulating, and even dictating, authorized illustration for defendants in politically delicate circumstances” which is “all too widespread on the Mainland.”
Attorneys for Li didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Li and Chan have been charged with colluding with overseas forces, alongside Lai. The federal government’s assertion of info characterizes the younger males as being a part of a “syndicate” that “conspired with different” folks to request overseas governments sanction or “interact in different hostile actions” in opposition to Hong Kong and China.
“Lai and Simon have been the masterminds and monetary supporters behind the scene and on the highest degree command of the syndicate,” the paperwork state, referring to Mark Simon, Lai’s American affiliate whose checking account was briefly used to carry funds for SWHK.
In August 2021, Li and Chan pleaded responsible, the primary two to confess to an offense below the nationwide safety regulation.
“I agree with the abstract of info, and I wish to apologize,” Li mentioned. As a result of they’re a part of the identical case, Li and Chan can’t be sentenced till the top of Lai’s trial, which has been delayed a number of instances — together with after a courtroom order blocked Lai’s overseas lawyer, British barrister Tim Owen, from representing him. All have been denied bail.
A number of folks accustomed to the case speculate that Li and Chan have been provided leniency as a part of a deal for agreeing to seem as witnesses, although that can not be independently confirmed. The Hong Kong authorities spokesman didn’t immediately deal with this query when requested by The Publish however mentioned all defendants “will bear a good trial.”
Finn Lau, who based SWHK and helped direct its actions by 2019 and a part of 2020, mentioned the allegations in opposition to Lai distort the reality. The group’s concepts, strategies, and ways have been their very own, and SWHK activists typically disagreed with Lai and his technology, who they felt have been too passive.
“They accused of [Lai] of directing us, pushing us,” Lau mentioned, “nevertheless it by no means occurred.”
Li is anticipated to take the stand within the new 12 months. As he awaits his flip as a witness, he has continued to put in writing to his household.
He ended a latest letter along with his favourite Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd … although I stroll by the valley of the shadow of dying, I’ll concern no evil.”
Cate Caddell in Washington contributed to this report.