Lee Yee
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Lee Yee (Chinese: 李怡; 13 April 1936 – 5 October 2022[1]) was a Hong Kong journalist and writer. He was well-known for founding the influential intellectual magazine Seventies Monthly, which later renamed The Nineties Monthly, and as a major columnist for the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.
Biography[edit]
Lee was born in Guangzhou in 1936 as Li Bingyao into a pro-Communist family. His father, Lee Fa, was a famous Cantonese film director.[2] He and his family moved to Hong Kong in 1948. He was graduated from Heung To Middle School, a local pro-Communist leftist school in 1954.[3]
He worked at the leftist Shanghai Bookshop after his graduation and began his career as a writer for more than fifty years by starting to write love letters in 1956.[2][4] In February 1970, he founded the influential intellectual Seventies Monthly magazine.[3] As editor-in-chief, he supported the Cultural Revolution and rose to fame due to his support of the Defend the Diaoyu Islands Movement.[4] The magazine was banned in Taiwan for reporting sensitive political issues under the Kuomintang authoritarian government.[2] It was also banned on the mainland from 1979 for voicing support of the Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng and anti-Deng Xiaoping remarks.[1][4]
Lee officially broke away from the leftist camp in 1981 after he openly criticised the Chinese Communist Party for banning the magazine, giving up his managing role in Cosmos Book Limited which he co-founded. He renamed his publication The Nineties Monthly in 1984 and switched his editorial stance to become anti-Communist.[2][4] Fearing for the censorship after the handover of Hong Kong, Lee moved the magazine operations to Taiwan in the 1990s and stopped the publication in May 1998.[1]
Lee became a major columnist for pro-democracy Apple Daily since its foundation in 1995 and was known for being a staunch critic of the Beijing government.[1] From 2007, he became one of the editorial writers for the newspaper.[2] He was also a columnist for Hong Kong Economic Journal and The Wall Street Journal Asia.[4]
He became more sympathetic to the youth-led localist movement in Hong Kong which sparked controversies among the pro-democracy camp. He voiced support for the protesters in the 2016 Mong Kok riot, as well as Baggio Leung and Yau Wai-ching, the two localist legislators who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Chinese government which triggered the disqualification waves in the same year.[5]
He supported the 2019 anti-extradition protests, praising the young protesters for their "moral courage".[5] He was one of the main interviewees in Revolution of Our Times, documentary of the protests.
Lee moved to Taiwan in 2020 after the enactment of the Hong Kong national security law, where he said he would "complete the last of his life".[1] He remained editorial writer for Apple Daily until it was forced to shut down in June 2020 under the national security law threat.
Lee suffered a heart attack in November 2021 and was sent to the National Taiwan University Hospital.[1] His health continued to deteriorate and was reportedly hospitalised with COVID-19 few weeks before he died.[4] He died at 9am on 5 October 2022 at the Cathay General Hospital in Taipei.[1]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Mok, Danny (5 October 2022). "Veteran Hong Kong journalist and former Apple Daily columnist Lee Yee dies at age 87". South China Morning Post.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 "香港作家李怡病逝 曾被警總冠名「李匪怡」、畢生追求民主自由". 自由時報 (in 中文). 2022-10-05.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "作家李怡離世 終年86歲". 香港電台 (in 中文). 2022-10-05.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 "「一輩子只相信自由」 李怡台北逝世 享年86". 明報 (in 中文). 2022-10-06.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "舊訪問談反修例：由衷敬佩年輕人勇氣力量". 明報 (in 中文). 2022-10-06.
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