China hit back at Washington’s call for the release of jailed pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai, saying U.S. attempts to “support the anti-China rioters” were doomed to fail, using a term it prefers to describe the 2019 protests.
The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor said in a Feb. 7 post to its X account that Lai, 77, “has spent more than 1,500 days imprisoned while standing up bravely for democracy and free speech in Hong Kong.”
“We urge the HK government to immediately and unconditionally release Jimmy Lai,” the tweet said.
A spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong said the remarks were “erroneous,” and accused Washington of “openly supporting anti-China and Hong Kong-disrupting element Jimmy Lai.”
Lai on Monday spent his 39th day on the witness stand on the 131st day of his national security trial.
The statement accused Lai of being “the main planner and instigator” of the 2019 protest movement in Hong Kong, which started as mass popular protests against plans to allow extradition to mainland China, and broadened to include demands for fully democratic elections and greater official accountability.
“The louder the US shouts for Lai, the more it proves that Lai is in cahoots with it, and its actions are doomed to be futile,” the spokesperson said, calling on Washington to “stop interfering in Hong Kong’s judiciary,” and to stop “sheltering” pro-democracy activists in exile.
The Hong Kong government said in a statement on Feb. 8 that the State Department comment was “inappropriate,” given that Lai’s trial is still ongoing.
It said the authorities “will continue to resolutely discharge the duty of safeguarding national security, prevent, suppress and punish in accordance with the law acts and activities endangering national security.”
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According to Benedict Rogers, founder and chief executive officer of the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch, Lai, a British citizen and a devout Catholic, is currently being held in solitary confinement and reportedly only permitted 50 minutes of exercise per day.
“That means he spends over 23 hours daily without natural light, fresh air, or human contact except with prison guards,” Rogers wrote in a Feb. 7 op-ed for the Catholic news site UCANews.
“A diabetic, he has been denied independent medical care and concerns are growing about his failing health.”
Lai has been in jail since his arrest in December 2020, awaiting trial for “collusion with foreign forces” under the National Security Law, and also serving separate sentences for lighting a candle and praying for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, for irregularities in the use of his newspaper’s office space, and for taking part in the 2019 protests.
“If lighting a candle, saying a prayer and joining a peaceful protest is a crime, deserving 13 or 14 months in jail per candle, prayer, or protest, I should be locked up for the rest of my life,” Rogers wrote.
He said Lai had sacrificed a life of wealth and freedom anywhere else in the world to stay in Hong Kong to fight for his principles, “in the knowledge that a jail cell could be his home for the remainder of his life,” he said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.