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HONG KONG – Some of the 12 began to relax. It had been about two hours since they set off from a quiet Hong Kong pier in August 2020. Fuel cans, backpacks and fishing rods nestled between them in the crowded boat, its silver-white hull slapping against the blue water.
The piercing sound of a whistle cut through the silence. A speedboat with five or six uniformed and armed men pulled alongside. They ordered the boat operator to turn off the engine. Soon, a second, much larger ship arrived – “CHINESE COAST GUARD” written in bold letters on the side – and made clear what they already knew: it was over.
A year earlier, mass protests had erupted in their city, turning these young Hong Kongers into street fighters and international advocates. After Beijing passed a draconian new national security law that would restrict the territory's remaining freedoms and impose long prison sentences on pro-democracy activists, they tried to escape – but were captured in international waters by China. The account of her capture at sea is described here for the first time through court documents obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the unfolding of the event.
Among those on board was a man who would soon emerge as a prized prisoner for Beijing: Andy Li Yu-hin. More than three years later, his role in reshaping Hong Kong in China's image is clear.
The highest-profile trial since the 2020 raid begins in Hong Kong on Monday. Li's testimony will be crucial to the government's case against Jimmy Lai, the billionaire media mogul and founder of the independent newspaper Apple Daily, which has now closed. Lai is accused of “cooperating with foreign forces” under the national security law. Hong Kong authorities will use the indictment to portray the 2019 protests as a U.S.-directed plot to destabilize China rather than the grassroots-organized demonstrations they were, say lawyers and analysts familiar with the case.
Li, a 33-year-old gifted programmer who became a key player in international lobbying and fundraising efforts during the protests, has already pleaded guilty under the national security law for his own role in the democracy movement and is expected to bind Lai on an alleged foreign conspiracy against Hong Kong and China.
But Li was mistreated in Chinese custody, a yearlong investigation into the case by The Washington Post found, raising questions about whether his testimony will be voluntary and reliable. The Post's reporting reveals previously unknown details about the Chinese authorities' forced treatment of the 12 refugees, particularly Li, as well as Li's reappearance and continued detention in Hong Kong after seven months of isolation in China.
“They have a storyline, some sort of story,” Beatrice Li, Andy’s sister, said of the charges. “And they have to fit the characters.”
This story is based on court documents from Hong Kong and mainland China, CCTV footage and surviving letters from prison or reviewed by The Post, as well as interviews with several people familiar with the experiences of the people on the boat and their detention on the mainland, as well as people close to both Li and Lai. Some people spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case or because they feared for their own safety; Most spoke exclusively to The Post. They said they agreed to an interview because they feared the case could be used to rewrite the narrative of the 2019 Hong Kong protests and because they wanted a historical record of the facts.
The confluence of events that brought the mogul and the former activist together as defendants and witnesses is evidence of the extent to which the independence of the city's courts has been eroded since Beijing's imposition of the national security law in June 2020, lawyers and democracy activists say – and How do the courts in Hong Kong now resemble the justice system in mainland China, where compelled testimony is routinely used to secure convictions? Hong Kong police have begun televising confessions from detained protesters, mirroring the long-established practice of public, coerced confessions in China.
“We have no confidence in the process in Hong Kong,” said Caoilfhionn Gallagher, the Irish human rights lawyer who leads Lai’s international legal team. “Jimmy Lai is being prosecuted under a law that should not exist, in a system that has become deeply unfair.”
Lai's Hong Kong-based legal team declined to comment, citing the practice of not speaking before trials.
Lai, 76, has previously been convicted of other crimes, including assembly crimes and fraud, but the national security charge is the most serious and carries a penalty of up to life in prison. He has been incarcerated since December 2020 and spends 23 hours a day in solitary confinement.
A Hong Kong government spokesman said in a written response to questions from The Post that all criminal decisions made by the Hong Kong Justice Department are “based on admissible evidence” and that Hong Kong enjoys “independent judicial power” with courts and judges that are “free from any interference.” .
“Cases are never treated differently based on the profession, political beliefs or background of the individuals involved,” the spokesman said. “To claim otherwise is complete nonsense without regard to objective facts.”
China's National Public Security Bureau and Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau did not respond to requests for comment. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said ahead of the trial: “Jimmy Lai is one of the most notorious anti-China elements seeking to destabilize Hong Kong and a mastermind of the unrest … responsible for numerous egregious acts.”
Pending his appearance as a witness, Li is being held at a psychiatric facility in Hong Kong and could not be reached for comment; Other prosecution witnesses in sensitive trials are also held in this remote unit. Li, who became a devout Christian while in prison, spends his days learning languages - Ukrainian and Arabic are his current focus – solving crossword puzzles and reciting psalms, according to people familiar with his situation.
A new, leaderless form of protest
The story of Jimmy Lai is a lore in Hong Kong. Many in the city can recount how he came to the city as a stowaway from China at the age of 12, toiled as a child laborer in a clothing factory, only to eventually found a popular clothing brand himself and then direct his fortune toward pro-democracy causes. It was the June 4, 1989 raid on Tiananmen Square in Beijing that prompted him to address the media. It is “the business of freedom, of providing freedom,” Lai said in a 2016 interview. In 1995, as the handover of Hong Kong to China approached, he founded Apple Daily with his own money.
Andy Li's childhood was no exception. He was raised by apolitical parents. His family did not attend the annual vigil commemorating the June 4 massacre. The Li family believed it was better to “just live your own life,” Beatrice Li said, “and just not get involved.”
As Li grew up, he preferred solitude and often lost himself in books and his computer. He quickly proved to be a gifted student and gained a place at the prestigious Diocesan Boys' School, a 154-year-old Anglican boys' school. Li decided to stay in the city to study and earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He also taught himself Japanese.
In June 2019, more than a million people took to the streets to peacefully protest against a bill that would allow the transfer of Hong Kong refugees to places with no extradition treaty – particularly mainland China. Among Hong Kong's most valued institutions were the common law courts, where defendants could be assured the right to bail, a fair trial, legal representation, and other guarantees not available on the mainland. The bill threatened to undermine the legal boundary between the two territories.
As demonstrations shook the city's streets, apps like Telegram and the LIHKG online forum had become an extension of the movement, places where the collective debated and voted on methods of resistance and new ideas. A group of Hong Kong-based scholars wrote in a 2021 article that the LIHKG Forum in particular contributed to the movement's “power and sustainability” and helped formulate justifications for more “radical” tactics. Li found his way to the online group Stand With Hong Kong (SWHK), his colleagues said, and became one of the many young Hong Kongers pushing this new, leaderless form of protest.
SWHK activists were anonymous both to the world and, at least initially, to each other. They worked across cities and time zones. Still, personalities emerged: Li is equally awkward, made jokes that never seemed to land, and was a workaholic who never slept.
“We used to tease him: 'Are you actually a computer?'” said Catherine Li, a former SWHK member who is not related to Andy.
SWHK grew into a formidable lobbying group focused on international advocacy. Information about what was happening in Hong Kong was translated into various languages and disseminated; Li was among those who helped teach Japanese. SWHK launched several crowdfunding campaigns that raised millions for its work, including funding advertisements supporting the protests in international newspapers. The campaigns were a huge success, but there was a catch: the funds raised on the website GoFundMe had to be deposited into a US-based bank account.
According to court documents, some of the crowdfunded money was transferred to the personal bank account of one of Lai's executives, Mark Simon, an American, in New York and eventually to the personal bank account of Andy Li in Hong Kong. At the time, Simon was a group leader at Next Digital, the parent company of Apple Daily.
Supporting the democracy movement through the media “is what we have been doing all along,” Simon said in an interview. Apple Daily would print tens of thousands of additional copies on key protest days in the city. “What these people did with the ads … was part of the program.”
His colleagues and sister said Li was willing to take on the role because he felt financially independent as a freelance programmer, unlike other Hong Kong residents who could be fired from their government-affiliated companies.
Li gave up his anonymity and became a representative of this decentralized movement in international forums. He appeared in person at a United Nations Human Rights Council meeting on China in Geneva in September 2019 and helped organize a monitoring mission ahead of local elections in Hong Kong in November.
“If he's already at risk, then let's put all the risks in that basket instead of transferring the risk to someone else,” Beatrice said of her brother's decision. At the time, nothing they did was illegal—not raising money abroad, lobbying foreign governments, or drawing attention to the movement.
The mood began to change in early 2020 when the pandemic ended the momentum on the streets. After calming the city, Beijing passed the national security law and introduced four vague new crimes: secession, subversion, cooperation with foreign forces and terrorism. On August 9, 2020, national security police spread across the city in their first raid under the new order. Jimmy Lai and his two sons were arrested while hundreds of officers searched Apple Daily's offices.
Lai's profile was so high that few paid any attention to the other arrestees that day. Among them was a police officer named Li Yu-hin. Friends and family simply called him Andy.
Hong Kong police released Li after the mandatory 48-hour bail period, but retained his passport. They also seized devices from his home – several laptops and phones, as well as a document containing a list of Hong Kong officials who activists believed should be targeted by US sanctions.
The arrests shocked the world of Li and other activists. The SWHK got into internal power struggles because they believed that the arrests had put the rest of them – still anonymous – in danger. Li's sister Beatrice, who had publicly fought at his side, left Hong Kong. Li himself became increasingly agitated as he tried to find a way out of the city without his passport, colleagues said.
“He did a lot of things he wouldn't normally do, like giving his personal information to others. This is not a typical Andy Li thing,” said a former colleague at SWHK. During those weeks, the person said, “Andy stopped seeming like a robot…it turned out he was more emotional than us.”
Since early 2020, some young Hong Kong activists facing criminal charges had been making plans to leave Hong Kong by boat for Taiwan, with the support of a group of volunteers. The designated captain and a few others prepared for the voyage by practicing sailing on the open sea. They pretended to be fishing enthusiasts and bought rods, reels and hooks – but also satellite phones and binoculars.
Li and another young man became last-minute entries, known to the group simply as “No. 11” and “No. 12,” Chinese court documents say.
Late on August 22, Quinn Moon, the operation's organizer and the only woman on the boat, told the others that they would leave the next morning and gather at the Po Toi O pier, according to Hong Kong court documents. Moon is in prison in Hong Kong and could not be reached for comment. CTV footage taken there shortly after sunrise on August 23, 2020 shows several young men wearing surgical masks, most in black T-shirts. They looked like casual day-trippers, except for the heavy fuel canisters they were carrying.
Relentless interrogations in China
After the 12 people were intercepted, Chinese coast guard officials took them to the coast guard ship and handcuffed them. The mood in the cabin was sombre as they sailed north for over an hour. As they tried to whisper to each other, armed guards shouted at them to shut up, according to people familiar with the events.
When they landed, they were taken by bus to a police station and then to a hospital, where their blood was drawn before being taken to a detention center in Yantian, a district of Shenzhen separated from Hong Kong by only a narrow bay. They were immediately separated and kept in individual cells.
For the first three months, they were locked in solitary cells where two guards took turns watching over them around the clock, including when they went to the bathroom, according to several people familiar with the conditions. The lights were always on. During the day, they were forced to sit cross-legged on a concrete stool until their joints ached, except during meals or interrogations. Walking around the cell was generally not permitted. At night they were woken up at random times for no apparent reason. They were never allowed outside.
The interrogations were relentless in the first few months, people familiar with the conditions said. Guards threatened to send them to Xinjiang – where the Chinese government has arbitrarily detained more than a million Muslim Uighurs, according to the United Nations, subjecting them to torture, forced sterilization, surveillance and other conditions – if they did not detail their attempt to escape.
Most of the 12 were not physically abused, but seven people familiar with conditions at the facility said screams could be heard “continuously” from one cell: Lis.
“It's likely that something [Li] One person said that the internal stress was ten times worse than the others.
After his arrest in Hong Kong and before boarding the boat, Li had entrusted someone to manage his passwords in the hope that they could access and secure his social media accounts in case something went wrong. When the person opened his Facebook account, he saw that it had been accessed after his detention in China. The term “crowdfunding” was entered into Facebook’s search box, the person said. “They were already looking for these links, this financial connection,” the person added.
In Hong Kong, prominent activists like Joshua Wong campaigned for those detained on the Chinese mainland. Hashtags like #save12 and #bringthemback went viral in the city. Beatrice opened an account on Twitter, which was renamed X this year. under the username “andy_is_missing” to draw attention to her brother's plight.
Li's family received their first letter from him in late November 2020. Li wrote that he was “neither bullied nor beaten” and that he had “hired a lawyer” to help him navigate legal proceedings on the mainland. He wrote to Beatrice: “Don’t keep doing what you’re doing, it’s time to stop.”
“I thought here, saw the situation more clearly, and there is no future in continuing,” Li wrote. “Look, I am a role model.”
Family members of the eleven other individuals received letters with similar wording or phrases, particularly regarding prison conditions.
Moon and the boat's driver, Tang Kai-yin, were charged as organizers of the escape and sentenced to two and three years in prison, respectively. Eight people, including Li, were charged with illegally entering China and sentenced to seven months in prison; Two minors in the group were returned to Hong Kong. According to mainland court documents, all “voluntarily” pleaded guilty.
Collaboration with foreign forces
Chan Tsz-wah, a former colleague of Li, was still sleeping at home in February 2021 when Hong Kong police knocked on his door. He barely had time to get dressed before they announced that he was under arrest under the security law. Jimmy Lai, already in prison, was rearrested and accused of helping Li's escape.
While they were questioning him, national security police told Chan that Li had “betrayed” his friends and told mainland police “everything, about everyone,” according to a person familiar with the matter.
Li was returned to Hong Kong by mainland authorities on March 22, 2021 and taken to the Siu Lam Psychiatric Center. Li's family has been unable to secure him independent legal representation, his sister said, and he continues to be represented by lawyers with close ties to the government.
A 2021 paper from Georgetown University's Center for Asian Law called Li's case a reflection of “the practice of manipulating or even mandating legal representation for defendants in politically sensitive cases” that is “all too common on the mainland.” .
Li's lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.
Li and Chan, along with Lai, were charged with colluding with foreign forces. The government's statement of facts characterizes the young men as part of a “syndicate” that conspired “with other” people to demand sanctions from foreign governments or engage in “other hostile activities” against Hong Kong and China.
“Lai and Simon were the masterminds and financial supporters behind the scenes and at the highest levels of leadership of the syndicate,” the documents say. refers to Mark Simon, Lai's American partner, whose bank account was briefly used to store funds for SWHK.
In August 2021, Li and Chan pleaded guilty, becoming the first two to admit to a crime under the national security law.
“I agree with the summary of facts and would like to apologize,” Li said. Because they are part of the same case, Li and Chan can only be convicted the end of Lai's trial was postponed several times – including after a court order prevented Lai's foreign lawyer, British lawyer Tim Owen, from representing him. All were refused bail.
Several people familiar with the case speculate that Li and Chan were offered leniency as part of a deal for agreeing to appear as witnesses, although this cannot be independently confirmed. Hong Kong's government spokesman did not directly address the issue when asked by the Post, but said all defendants “will undergo a fair trial.”
Finn Lau, who founded SWHK and co-led its operations until 2019 and part of 2020, said the allegations against Lai distort the truth. The group's ideas, methods and tactics were their own, and SWHK activists often disagreed with Lai and his generation, whom they considered too passive.
“They blamed [Lai] “Guiding us and pushing us,” Lau said, “but it never happened.”
Li is expected to take the stand in the new year. As he waits his turn to testify, he continues to write to his family.
He ended a recent letter with his favorite Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd…Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
Cate Caddell in Washington contributed to this report.