Apple Daily staff members should not worry and continue to fight on, the newspaper’s founder Jimmy Lai said from his prison cell on Sunday.

Lai, 73, is currently remanded at the top-security Stanley Prison after being moved there from the Lai Chi Kok detention center on Friday. He will remain behind bars until Apr. 16 where his next court hearing has been set to answer charges including fraud and collusion with foreign forces under the national security law. He celebrated his birthday in jail earlier this month.

Apple Daily Chief Executive Cheung Kim-hung visited Lai at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, leaving around an hour and 15 minutes later. Lai was in good spirits and the food he received was not as bad as people had imagined, Cheung said. Staffers of the newspaper have no need to worry and Apple Daily would continue to publish unless there was political suppression to shut it down, Cheung quoted Lai as saying.

It was sad to see Lai being treated as a dangerous criminal who would be placed in shackles when being transported to court, Cheung said. However, Lai was optimistic about a bail hearing on Wednesday, he added.

Earlier this week, the last British governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten chose Lai as his man of the year, saying that “his handcuffs and chains are a tragic symbol of what has happened to Hong Kong’s once-free society in 2020.”

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