Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai, 76, testified in court for the first time on Wednesday in his landmark national security trial, accused of endangering China's national security by colluding with foreign forces.

Jimmy Lai, who is charged with national security offenses, testified that his newspaper “carried a torch to the reality” of people’s desire for freedom in the city.

Pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai said on Thursday he was against violence and had not sought to incite hatred against China and Hong Kong authorities by calling for protests to defend basic rights, speaking in his second day of testimony in a landmark national security trial.

Former Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai is fighting charges of colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiring with others to issue seditious publications.

Hong Kong's former colonial ruler Britain and the United States have condemned the trial and have called for Lai's immediate release. Hong Kong officials say Lai will receive a fa

The defendants were prosecuted under a sweeping law imposed by Beijing that crushed a once-thriving pro-democracy movement.

Pro-democracy advocate and media mogul Jimmy Lai revealed in his trial in Hong Kong on Wednesday that he had hoped Donald Trump could intervene to stop the imposition of Beijing’s national security law in 2020.

Lai, the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, is facing charges of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and publishing seditious materials, all of which are crimes under Hong Kong’s controversial national security law,