JANUARY 12, 2015 1:59 AM January 12, 2015 1:59 am
Jimmy Lai, the founder and owner of Next Media. He was a central figure in the Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong.Credit Brent Lewin for The New York Times
Jimmy Lai, profiled in Monday’s New York Times, is the founder and owner and was until recently the chairman of Next Media, which publishes the Apple Daily newspaper and Next Magazine in Hong Kong and Taiwan. He was a central figure in the pro-democracy Occupy Central protests, in which demonstrators closed major streets in three sections of Hong Kong between late September and mid-December. Now, officials in Hong Kong are weighing bringing formal charges against scores of people they have identified as key members of the protests. On Friday, Mr. Lai, 66, was instructed to report to police headquarters on Jan. 21.
For his anti-Communist views, and the muckraking and sometimes paparazzi style of journalism he endorses, Mr. Lai has come under frequent attack in Hong Kong — verbally, politically, online and physically. That includes the firebombing early Monday morning of the entrances to his home and to Next Media’s offices, carried out by unidentified assailants who appeared to have thrown Molotov cocktails.
In an interview at his home last week, a 1930s villa on a leafy, quiet street in Kowloon, Mr. Lai spoke about his role in the democracy movement in Hong Kong, why he is distancing himself from his media company and the challenges that lie ahead. Excerpts follow:
Q.
You’ve always been pro-democracy, but did your publications become more extreme in their coverage over the past few months?
A.
I think we did so during the Umbrella Revolution. Because we were being attacked — hacking, people coming to our place and demonstrating. That definitely pushes our people to be more extreme just by the defensiveness of it. But after that, you see that Hong Kong is now torn apart by two extremes, the blue and the yellow [the pro-Beijing and pro-democracy camps, respectively]. Naturally I think it is necessary for people like us, media like us, to be getting closer to the center and less to the extreme. Because you don’t want to tear society apart so much by going further to the extreme.
I think the tension has moderated a bit. People looking back to the movement are more clear and rational about it, because there’s much less emotional tension there.
Q.
What did Occupy Central or the Umbrella Movement accomplish?
A.
What the movement has done is to simplify the exercise of fighting for universal suffrage. This is civil disobedience as exercised by the young people. Obviously the government sees long-term turbulence if they don’t solve the problem. I think the movement was a wake-up call. We put the problem on the table with the Occupy movement, and they will have to solve it.
Q.
What about more radical democracy protesters who say you and the Occupy movement didn’t go far enough?
A.
What’s the alternative? We may not accomplish anything, but this is the only power we have, the moral power. What else do we have? Nothing. We can’t go out and destroy cars, burn offices, crash the police station, set fire to government buildings. We can’t do this; it would be ridiculous. If we do any of this, we are finished. We won’t have the sympathy of the people, and we won’t have the sympathy of the world. We will lose the moral ground we are standing on.
Q.
When the protests broke out, you got tear-gassed, on Sept. 28.
A.
I was at the front of the mass protesting against police with Martin Lee [the founder of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, age 76]. This was in front of Admiralty and the KFC. We were standing there, and we saw people rush into the road and occupy it, and in that moment I said, ‘Oh my God, this is wonderful.’
The next thing we feared was if things turned violent, that it would be uncontrollable. Martin and I went out to appease the people and tell them that our most basic movement is peace and love. We stood on a concrete road divider, talking to the people. While Martin was talking, the tear gas came.
