The decision to sentence Jimmy Lai to 20 years in jail in Hong Kong is no surprise, but it is no less shocking or heartbreaking. For his family, especially his courageous wife Teresa, son Sebastien and daughter Claire, who have advocated so tirelessly for their father over the past five years, one can only imagine the pain and grief they feel. Sebastien and Claire have walked the corridors of power in Washington, DC, Westminster, Ottawa, Brussels, Paris and beyond, and sat in television studios for hour after hour, seemingly to no avail.
For Hong Kong, this is yet another dark day, yet another nail in the coffin of the city’s freedoms. And for everyone who cares about liberty, the rule of law, and basic human rights, this sentence is a punch in the solar plexus. The United Nations High Commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, quite rightly deplored the sentence and called for Mr Lai’s release.
But for Jimmy Lai himself, this 20-year sentence is in effect a life sentence and – ultimately – a death sentence. Aged 78, Mr Lai is in deteriorating health, with diabetes, a heart condition, dramatic weight loss and other ailments. He has already spent over five years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement in a small cell with no natural light, in extreme heat, and with less than an hour a day for exercise. A devout Catholic, he has been denied the right to receive Holy Communion. Last September, his son and international legal team filed a new urgent appeal with the United Nations based on his worsening health condition. In 2024, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled Mr Lai’s imprisonment unlawful, and several UN special rapporteurs have repeatedly called for his release.
What are Mr Lai’s crimes? He has been convicted and jailed for being a threat to national security under the draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing in 2020. Specifically, he is accused of ‘conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and to publish seditious materials’. As the head of his international legal team, Doughty Street barrister Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC puts it so aptly, in effect his crimes are conspiracy to commit journalism, to discuss politics with politicians, and to talk about human rights with human rights organisations. I was among those so-called ‘foreign forces’ Mr Lai allegedly conspired with – I was named some 95 times in the guilt verdict issued by the Hong Kong court in December.
Not enough has been done to press for Jimmy Lai’s release
Mr Lai, a British citizen, is a hugely successful entrepreneur with an extraordinary rags-to-riches tale. As the remarkable documentary about his life, The Hong Konger, explains, at the age of 12 he escaped as a stowaway from Mao Zedong’s China during the famine caused by the Great Leap Forward and worked as a child labourer in a garment factory in Hong Kong. He went on to start his own retail company, Giordano, and made his fortune. He branched out into other commercial sectors, including hotels, real estate and then media, founding Next magazine and then the pro-democracy daily newspaper Apple Daily. He became one of Hong Kong’s most prominent advocates for democracy and human rights.
Key to understanding the significance of Mr Lai’s case is the fact that he could have left Hong Kong at any time up until his arrest in 2020. He owns properties in London, Taipei, and Paris and could easily have settled in any one of these cities. Yet he chose to remain in Hong Kong, in the knowledge that it was only a matter of time before he would be arrested. In 2019 he said in an interview, ‘I’ve been one of the troublemakers. I can’t just make trouble and then leave.’
But it is also essential to understand that Mr Lai always advocated peaceful, non-violent action for democracy and never supported calls for independence. All he wanted was for Beijing to honour the promises it made in the Sino-British Joint Declaration, the international treaty signed in 1984 to pave the way for the handover of Hong Kong. That treaty promised that Hong Kong’s freedoms, rule of law and human rights would be upheld for at least 50 years from the time of the 1997 handover. Less than halfway through that period, Beijing tore up its treaty obligations and dismantled Hong Kong’s freedoms.
So what should Britain and the international community do in response to Mr Lai’s sentencing? Firstly, we should acknowledge that not enough has been done to press for his release. Statements alone do not cut it.
Britain – under the previous Conservative government and the current Labour one – has let down its citizen. It took far too long to acknowledge that Mr Lai is a British citizen and far too long for senior ministers to meet his son Sebastien. Instead of using leverage by making Mr Lai’s release a pre-condition for his recent visit to China, Keir Starmer did nothing more than ‘bring up’ the case with Chinese president Xi Jinping. Even in Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper’s statement today, she simply says that the Prime Minister ‘raised’ Mr Lai’s case. That is not good enough.
To give Britain some credit, when the draconian national security law was imposed on Hong Kong in 2020 the government opened up a generous pathway to citizenship for Hong Kong holders of British National Overseas status. From today, the scheme has been expanded. This provides a lifeline to Hong Kongers who need to escape the increasing repression and is a welcome move. But more must be done.
There must be consequences for Beijing’s actions. Targeted ‘Magnitsky’-style sanctions – which can be brought against human rights abusers – must be imposed on the Chinese and Hong Kong officials responsible for Mr Lai’s incarceration. And international pressure for Mr Lai’s release on humanitarian grounds must be intensified. Britain must coordinate efforts with like-minded allies. President Trump – who promised to free Jimmy Lai and is expected to visit China in April – must use his influence with Xi.
Beijing has been allowed to make an example of Mr Lai by imposing a cruel sentence. Now it must be pressed to show clemency and allow him to leave Hong Kong and spend his final years with his family. Otherwise, Mr Lai will die in jail as a martyr for freedom.
Comments