The detained Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai on Tuesday received an accolade from global press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, which praised his media outlet for daring to “openly criticize the Chinese regime.”

Lai is the laureate of RSF’s special prize this year, awarded in Taipei in addition to three annual prizes. The man stood out for “his courage and struggle,” said RSF’s emeritus board member and 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown survivor Wu’er Kaixi.

“Considering the sharp decline in press freedom in Hong Kong due to pressure from the Chinese regime, the jury wished to provide particular support to Jimmy Lai, founder of one of the few Hong Kong media which still dare to openly criticize the Chinese regime and which widely covered last year’s pro-democracy protests,” RSF said in announcing this year’s winners.

The reporters’ group has been increasingly vocal about the decline of press freedom in Hong Kong. Soon after Lai was denied bail in a fraud case on Dec. 2, RSF called on local authorities to end judicial harassment of him.

The city, which RSF describes as “once a bastion of press freedom,” has fallen from 18th place in 2002 to 80th place in the 2020 RSF World Press Freedom Index.

In a pre-recorded video, Lai expressed his gratitude to RSF for the award. “The work Reporters Without Borders [has done] is so important, reminding us in Asia and in the world of the value of open and free press,” he said.

Lai is remanded in custody, pending a hearing for fraud over land use that is set for mid-April next year. By then, he will have been incarcerated for more than four months.

“Now, our open and free press in Hong Kong is being clamped down by the [Chinese Communist Party] by using the national security law. We are not even allowed to demonstrate,” Lai added. “I’m afraid that without the news, the world will forget us. And please, fellow reporters, please keep on writing about us, voicing out for us, and draw the world’s attention to our plight.”

One of his sons, Sebastian Lai, received the award on his behalf. The younger Lai said that his father and the many brave people of Hong Kong, “the small island in the great economic machine that is China, is a reminder that the quest for absolute control is futile. They are the cogs that refuse to roll over, they are the glitch in the matrix. While you may lock them up, you will never control them.”

The establishment of RSF was inspired by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which promotes equal rights to freedom of opinion and expression.

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