0:00

So 15 to

0:02

20 police officers rocked up

0:04

at our house around 5-6

0:07

a.m. They

0:10

knocked on our door, went in, choked my father

0:12

in cuffs. And

0:17

they proceeded to take him to his

0:19

offices, the Apple Daily offices, where 200

0:24

police officers were there who had raided

0:26

the Apple Daily offices as well, and

0:29

paraded him around like he was some criminal

0:31

in cuffs. This

0:33

is Sebastian Lai, and one morning in

0:35

2020, he woke up to see missed

0:38

phone calls filling his phone. His

0:40

dad, Jimmy Lai, had just been

0:42

arrested. Jimmy is a well-known newspaper

0:45

tycoon in Hong Kong. His

0:47

newspaper, Apple Daily, was the most popular newspaper

0:49

in Hong Kong, read by over 9 million

0:52

people every month. He

0:55

was also known for its strong stance on

0:57

political freedoms. So when

0:59

the Chinese government cracked down on pro-democracy

1:01

protesters, Apple Daily was a

1:04

top target. And

1:07

our journalists, who were incredibly

1:10

brave, many of them

1:12

livestreamed when they were told to stop. Some

1:16

of the female journalists went to the

1:19

bathroom and actually kept

1:21

live-updating it from the bathroom.

1:24

Apple Daily livestreamed the raid from its

1:26

roof, as hundreds of police

1:28

rifled through the newsroom a few floors

1:31

below. In all,

1:33

five executives, including three editors, were

1:35

arrested. The people of Hong

1:37

Kong lined

1:39

up to buy Apple Daily the next day, and

1:42

there's this incredibly moving story where one

1:45

of the people in the queue was interviewed, and

1:47

he was asked, you know,

1:49

now that Apple Daily has

1:52

essentially been made illegal, are

1:54

you still going to buy

1:56

it? And he turns around and he

1:58

says, I'll buy it. I'll

2:00

buy it even if it was a white piece of paper. From

2:05

Chaw's Media, I'm Rick Morton and this

2:07

is 7 a.m. Sebastian

2:15

Lai has taken up the cause of

2:17

convincing political leaders to fight for his

2:19

father's release from a Hong Kong prison.

2:22

He's now in Australia trying to persuade

2:24

our Parliament to use whatever power it

2:26

has to convince China. Today,

2:30

Sebastian tells the story of his father Jimmy and

2:32

how he went from media tycoon to

2:34

political prisoner. That's

2:40

coming up after the break. Future

2:50

Remains, the 2024 MacFarlane

2:52

Commissions, explores the gifts

2:55

and burdens of inheritance and how

2:57

they might be transformed. For Future

2:59

Worlds, showing until September 1st at

3:01

the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.

3:04

Free. Visit aca.melbourne.

3:10

Tell me about your dad because Jimmy is

3:12

central to your story, obviously, but also

3:14

to the democratic

3:17

fight in Hong Kong. Tell

3:19

me about his life story. How did he end up in

3:21

Hong Kong in the first place? So

3:23

it's quite a beautiful story. He

3:27

was born in mainland China a

3:29

few years before the Communists came.

3:32

And when they came, his father left and

3:34

his mum was put in a reeducational camp.

3:37

So he was really the man and family at a very

3:39

young age, you know, five, six years old. And

3:42

he had to take care of his siblings. And so he

3:44

eventually went to work at a train

3:47

station when he was nine

3:49

or 10 years old. You know, helping

3:51

people carry luggages. And one day

3:53

this very wild rest man turned around and gave

3:55

him a half-eaten bar of chocolate. Now,

3:58

he had never seen chocolate. before

4:00

or known of it at all. But he was very hungry,

4:02

so he turns around and eats it. And for

4:06

him, it was a religious experience. And

4:09

actually, he chases off the man and says, excuse

4:11

me, where are you from? And the man turns around and says, well, I'm

4:13

from Hong Kong. And so, dad

4:16

thinks to himself, well,

4:18

if chocolate is from Hong Kong, then Hong Kong must be heaven.

4:21

And I will go there one day. So,

4:24

he keeps his promise to himself. And

4:26

at 12, he manages to smuggle to Hong Kong.

4:31

And the first day he arrives, he starts working in a

4:33

in a glove factory. But he's always

4:35

told me that even though he had nothing

4:37

at that point, even maybe less than nothing because

4:39

he owed money to the smugglers, he

4:42

felt like he was

4:44

in heaven because he finally

4:46

had a future. And he

4:48

worked his way up from the glove factory.

4:51

Eventually, he goes to start his own

4:53

textile manufacturer. In

4:57

the history of communist China, there has

4:59

never been anything like this. Eventually,

5:02

though, in 1989, there are

5:05

protests happening all across China.

5:07

In the dead of night, 2000 students

5:10

marched through the streets of Beijing

5:12

calling for democracy, human rights and

5:14

the resignation of the Chinese government.

5:17

But obviously, as we now know, with

5:19

the hindsight of history, the Tiananmen Square

5:21

Massacre happened. And that was heartbreaking for

5:24

for him and many people actually. And for dad,

5:26

it was this political awakening, he realized that that

5:29

he needed to do something to defend the freedoms

5:31

of Hong Kong, as Hong Kong was

5:33

going to be handed over to the Chinese in 1997

5:37

by the British. And so,

5:39

he founded Next Magazine and then Apple

5:41

Daily, you know, with the

5:43

idea that a lot of newspapers had a

5:45

big side of self-censoring that Apple Daily wasn't

5:47

going to self censor.