Jimmy Lai is a 76-year-old British man imprisoned in Hong Kong for his peaceful pro-democracy campaigning. He was first arrested in August 2020 and has been continuously in prison since December 2020.

Born in mainland China, Jimmy Lai escaped by boat to Hong Kong at age 12, when Hong Kong was a British dependency. There, he worked as a porter and factory worker until he saved enough money to start a small textile business. Eventually, Lai became one of the region’s most significant fashion manufacturers and later one of its largest retailers.

Yet he gave that all up when he witnessed the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. That’s when he founded Apple Daily, which became the region’s most successful independent Chinese language newspaper. Apple Daily promoted democracy and civil liberties and was openly critical of Chinese authorities.

Lai favors democratic reform in Hong Kong and objects to China destroying Hong Kong’s institutions and freedoms. But he is not a political leader and has never sought political power. Nonetheless, the Hong Kong authorities are seeking to destroy him.

Beginning in August 2020, the Hong Kong authorities targeted him and his media house, prosecuting him and forcing the closure of his newspaper.

Lai has been convicted of and served prison time for four offenses connected to his attendance at peaceful pro-democracy protests, some attended by up to a quarter of Hong Kong’s population.

Lai has also been convicted of fraud for what amounts to a lease violation and is still serving that six-year sentence. He is now on trial charged with offenses under Hong Kong’s controversial National Security Law.

Jimmy Lai faces charges under Hong Kong’s draconian National Security Law, which arose in 2020 in response to the pro-democracy movement. This law makes it a criminal offense to call for measures to be taken against China or Hong Kong and is punishable by up to life in prison.

Lai was charged under this law for seeking democratic change in Hong Kong through his peaceful activism and articles published in his newspaper.

His National Security Law trial will likely last from Monday, December 18th, 2023, into the middle of 2024.

The National Security Law (NSL) is a piece of Chinese domestic legislation from 2020 that creates a number of new offenses, including secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign organizations. While drafted with vague language, this legislation has, in practice, been used solely to clamp down on pro-democracy and pro-independence persons.

The NSL also created sweeping new powers of surveillance, detention, search, and seizure, exercisable at the behest of the executive through the new Office for Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong, which reports directly to the mainland authorities.

The Director of National Security recently boasted that the NSL has a 100% success rate. The US, UK, EU, and UN have criticized the NSL for breaking the treaty by which Hong Kong returned to Chinese control in 1997 and for breaching many of China’s international legal obligations.

Jimmy Lai’s treatment by the Hong Kong authorities has been widely condemned as arbitrary, disproportionate, and cruel. Prosecuting Jimmy Lai, a 76-year-old man, for his peaceful pro-democracy campaigning, and now seeking to convict him under the NSL, serves no purpose other than to silence him and others like him. It seeks to ensure that those like him who question Hong Kong’s future under Chinese rule are too scared to speak out in the future.

Jimmy Lai is being punished for giving voice to those in Hong Kong who dared to stand up for human rights and values, such as free speech, the right to peaceful assembly and protest, and the rule of law, that China should have been protecting had it adhered to its international legal obligations.

Jimmy Lai is a British citizen and only holds a British passport.

No. Since he was first imprisoned in August 2020, Jimmy Lai has never received a consular visit from UK officials. The Chinese Government does not recognize his British citizenship and wrongly claims he is Chinese. UK consular officials have sought to visit him, but the Hong Kong authorities have refused access.

The UK Government has raised concerns about Jimmy Lai’s case with the Chinese Government. In August 2023, James Cleverly MP, the UK’s former Foreign Secretary, raised the case when visiting Beijing. In December 2023, Lord Cameron, the current Foreign Secretary, raised the case with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi. Lord Cameron also met with Sebastien Lai and emphasized that Jimmy Lai’s case is a priority for the UK. On the eve of the trial, the UK Foreign Secretary called for repeal of Hong Kong’s National Security Law and for an end to all prosecutions under it. He specifically called on the Hong Kong authorities to end their prosecution of Jimmy Lai and called for his release. His sentiments were echoed by the US State Department, which also urged the immediate release of Lai.

The UK has also raised concerns regarding Jimmy Lai’s case at the United Nations and in its regular reports on the implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration.

Yes, Hong Kong is part of China. Until 1997, Hong Kong was a British Crown colony, governed from London but with a high degree of autonomy. Hong Kong had an independent judiciary operating within the common law framework, and Hong Kongers enjoyed property rights and a free press protected by the rule of law.
In 1984, China and the UK negotiated the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule, and the two countries signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the question of Hong Kong, an International Treaty registered with the United Nations. Although Hong Kong would, in some respects, become a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China, the Treaty was intended to preserve certain rights and freedoms for Hong Kong’s citizens for at least 50 years following the 1997 handover. These rights and freedoms included free speech, peaceful assembly, and trial by jury. The NSL does away with those rights and freedoms.

Apple Daily, which Jimmy Lai founded in 1995, became the region’s most popular independent Chinese language newspaper. It was published in print and online as part of the Next media house that Jimmy Lai created in 1990 following the Tiananmen Square massacre, when the Chinese government ordered a crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy and anti-corruption student protests, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties. By 2020, it had become one of the most widely read newspapers in Hong Kong, with the greatest penetration of digital subscribers of any newspaper in the world.

On 24 June 2021, Apple Daily printed its last edition and closed down. By then, the company had been raided by National Security Police, had its bank accounts frozen, and its senior executives had all been either arrested or exiled. Despite having a healthy bank account, it was no longer permitted to pay its staff or suppliers. The Police issued a notice threatening anyone dealing with the company with criminal prosecution. Since then, the company has been put into compulsory administration by the Hong Kong authorities, and in January 2023, its last remaining assets — including the printing presses themselves — were auctioned off in a fire sale. Within just two years, a once-vibrant, commercially successful, independent media business had been snuffed out.