The son of jailed pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai has warned that “time is running out” for his father’s health, and called on Britain and the United States to push for his release.
“His body is breaking down ... It’s akin to torture,” Sebastien Lai told Reuters ahead of the Human Rights and Democracy summit in Geneva on Feb. 18. “Time is running out for my father.”
Lai, 77, has spent more than 1,500 days behind bars, and is diabetic. He is a British citizen.
In jail since his arrest in December 2020, Lai is currently standing trial for “collusion with foreign forces” under Hong Kong’s National Security Law. He has also been handed 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.
Sebastien Lai called on global leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump — who has pledged to help get Lai out of jail — and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, to take urgent action, as his father faces his fourth year of solitary confinement.
“We are incredibly grateful that [Trump] said that. It gives us a lot of hope,” Sebastien Lai said, but called for a stronger response from the United Kingdom.
“If (Britain) wants to normalize relations, they shouldn’t normalize citizens being arrested for standing up for democracy,” he said.
The Hong Kong government told Reuters that Hong Kong “strongly disapproves of and rejects misinformation and smearing remarks made by Sebastien Lai,” while China’s permanent mission in Geneva described the claims about Lai’s health as “slanderous.”
Sebastien Lai called on governments to “champion” his father, who decided not to flee the city when Beijing imposed the first of two national security laws in 2020, despite knowing he’d be a target.
RELATED STORIES
China hits back at Washington over call for Jimmy Lai release
Detained Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai denies foreign collusion
Evidence against Jimmy Lai ‘obtained through torture’: UN expert
Jimmy Lai’s security trial begins in Hong Kong amid international uproar
“He refused to leave,” he told Voice of America. “Six decades after landing on the shore of this island in pursuit of freedom, he decided to stay and stand with his fellow protesters.”
Human rights groups say Lai’s trial is a “sham” and part of a broad crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong that has all but destroyed its reputation as the only place in Greater China where the rule of law and freedoms of speech and assembly were preserved.
In November 2024, a Hong Kong court jailed 45 democracy supporters at the end of the city’s biggest national security trial to date.
Those sentences drew international condemnation and calls for further sanctions on Hong Kong and the expansion of lifeboat visa schemes for those fleeing the political crackdown in the city.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.