Jimmy Lai moves court to stop police from accessing his phones

Hong Kong has seen a number of prominent media personalities and journalists getting arrested in the recent past. Media tycoon Jimmy Lai, the founder of Next Digital and Apple Daily newspaper, was one such personality who was charged under the new Beijing-backed legislation which many believed was designed to hurt press freedom. The ongoing case of Lai has now taken a fresh turn as he filed a legal action to stop the authorities from inspecting his mobile phones.

In the application presented to the Hong Kong authorities, the media tycoon said that the phones cannot be inspected on grounds of national security. Earlier, the court granted the National Security Department permission to go through all the contents of the two iPhones belonging to Lai.

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The authorities raided the offices of Apply Daily newspaper in August 2020 and confiscated a lot of digital objects before arresting Lai. Lai and his lawyers have argued in their latest request that the phones contain 8,179 journalistic items which are considered ‘privileged information’.

“The national security law does not authorise rule-making that alters established substantive rights under the common law or in a statute by removing or reducing them,” the writ petition said.

Although the new law allows the authorities to access the information of any confiscated object, any confidential information between an entity and their clients can be seen as an exception.

Lai, who is currently serving 20 years in prison, said that the new request will be heard on August 22.

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