Lam Man-chung, former executive editor-in-chief of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, is serving a 10-year sentence for conspiracy to collude with foreign forces.
He was sentenced on February 9, 2026, after pleading guilty in November 2022 in return for clemency on another charge.
Lam was one of six Apple Daily editors and executives sentenced alongside the newspaper’s founder and publisher, Jimmy Lai, who was jailed for 20 years, in Hong Kong’s largest ever media trial.
Apple Daily, a subsidiary of the media company Next Digital Limited, was published from 1995 until it was forced to close in 2021. When police arrested Lam, Lai, and the other executives they cited dozens of articles published by Apple Daily, mostly commentary and opinion pieces calling for foreign sanctions, as evidence.
Lam was arrested on July 21, 2021, at his home and has been behind bars ever since.
During sentencing, Hong Kong’s High Court said because Lam neither testified nor assisted the prosecution, he was entitled to only the customary one-third reduction in his sentence due to his timely guilty plea. His 10-year jail term was the statutory minimum penalty.
Lam has lodged an appeal against his sentence, but a hearing date has not yet been fixed.
The arrests of Lam, Lai, and the other executives came amid authorities’ crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement, which targeted many media figures and activists critical of the government and the Chinese Communist Party.
In response to a request for comment, Hong Kong’s Security Bureau referred CPJ to a statement that quoted the city’s leader, John Lee, saying the court has already handed down “severe sentences” for the defendants in accordance with the law, “manifesting that the rule of law is upheld and justice is done.”