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Published January 12, 2015

Media mogul Jimmy Lai wearing goggles appears outside the government headquarters to join a protest in Hong Kong, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2014. Hong Kong activists kicked off a long-threatened mass civil disobedience protest Sunday to challenge Beijing over restrictions on voting reforms, escalating the battle for democracy in the former British colony after police arrested dozens of student demonstrators. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)(The Associated Press)

HONG KONG Hong Kong police are investigating after small firebombs were thrown at the home and business of a pro-democracy media magnate in an apparent intimidation attempt.

Surveillance video showed a car backing up to the gates of Jimmy Lai's home early Monday and a masked attacker getting out and throwing what looks to be a Molotov cocktail before driving off.

At about the same time, another incendiary device was thrown from a car at the entrance to his Next Media company. Its publications include the flagship pro-democracy Apple Daily, one of the city's most popular newspapers.

No one was injured and the small fires were quickly extinguished. The cars used in the attacks were later found burned out and stripped of their license plates, according to local media reports.

Lai is well known as a critic of Beijing and a staunch supporter of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, which occupied streets for 11 weeks last year to press their demands for free elections. He was among the thousands of protesters who were tear-gassed by police as the protest movement erupted in September.

"The goal is intimidation," said Next Media spokesman Mark Simon of Monday's attacks. He said they were a "continuation of the attacks against Mr. Lai and Next Media for its editorial position, which is at odds with the anti-democracy forces."

Lai was one of the many people arrested by police when they moved in to shut the protest camps down in December. Shortly after, he stepped down as chairman of Next, citing family and personal reasons, but remains the controlling shareholder.

The protesters wanted free elections for the semiautonomous Chinese territory's leader in 2017. Backed by Beijing, Hong Kong's government plans for all candidates to be authorized by a pro-Beijing committee.

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Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul's home, business attacked with firebombs

Published January 11, 2015

HONG KONG Hong Kong police are investigating after small firebombs were thrown at the home and business of a pro-democracy media magnate in an apparent intimidation attempt.

Surveillance video showed a car backing up to the gates of Jimmy Lai's home early Monday, and then an attacker getting out and throwing what looks to be a Molotov cocktail.

At about the same time, another incendiary was thrown from a car at the entrance to his media company.

No one was injured.

Next Media spokesman Mark Simon said it was a "continuation of the attacks against Mr. Lai and Next Media for its editorial position, which is at odds with the anti-democracy forces."

Lai staunchly supports Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, which occupied streets last year to press their demands.

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Hong Kong pro-democracy tycoon's home, business attacked with small firebombs

Ip Yut Kin, the chief executive of Apple Daily, Mr Lai's pro-democracy newspaper, said the "barbaric act" was an attack on press freedom.

Monday's incident is the latest in a series of violent attacks on figures linked to Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement.

In February last year Kevin Lau, the liberal former editor of Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper, was left fighting for his life after being set upon by two men, one with a meat cleaver.

Speaking at an emergency House of Commons debate on post-handover Hong Kong last month, Ann Clwyd, Labour MP, described that attack as part of a growing trend of violence and intimidation targeting the former British colony's journalists.

"Mr Lau had been abruptly fired a month beforehand by the paper's owner, a tycoon with major investments in China, and replaced by a new editor who was widely seen as more pro-Chinese," the British MP noted.

Jimmy Lai, who was born in Mainland China but moved to Hong Kong as a boy, has long been a thorn in Beijing's side.

His Apple Daily tabloid has thrown its full weight behind the former colony's pro-democracy Umbrella Movement, which began last September, and Mr Lai himself frequently lambasts China's Communist leaders.

"It's not mainland China that rubs me up the wrong way, it is the dictatorship that rubs me up the wrong way," he told CNN in 2009. "It's the freedom that we Chinese people are not allowed that rubs me up the wrong way."

Last month the 66-year-old tycoon was one of dozens of pro-democracy activists to be detained when Hong Kong police cleared a sprawling protest camp near the former colony's financial centre.

"I am happy to be arrested," Mr Lai told The Telegraph before he was taken away by officers.

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Petrol bombs thrown at home of Hong Kong democracy activist

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