'The cruel vindictiveness of the treatment of Catholic entrepreneur Jimmy Lai', Benedict Rogers

Reports that Jimmy Lai, the jailed Catholic entrepreneur and pro-democracy activist in Hong Kong, has been denied Holy Communion since last December, are shocking – and illustrate the cruel vindictiveness of the regime that has imprisoned him.

According to a report in The Pillar, Mr Lai – a devout Catholic – has now been banned from receiving the sacrament from priests who occasionally visit him since his current trial began last December. It is a gross violation of religious freedom.

Earlier this week, Mr Lai’s international legal team, led by Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, submitted an urgent appeal to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, Dr Alice Edwards, on his behalf. This follows an initiative by the Special Rapporteur on 31 January this year, when she wrote to the authorities in China to raise claims that evidence from a key prosecution witness had been obtained through torture. It also follows an intervention by five UN Special Rapporteurs at the start of the year, calling for Mr Lai’s immediate and unconditional release.

The new appeal highlights Mr Lai’s prolonged detention in solitary confinement for over three and a half years, in which he is held in his cell for 23 hours 10 minutes each day. He is routinely permitted only 50 minutes for restricted exercise and has limited human contact or access to daylight.

Mr Lai, aged 76 and a British citizen, has been denied access to independent medical care, which is profoundly concerning given that he suffers from diabetes. His international legal team at Doughty Street Chambers note that “lack of specialised medical care increases the risk of long-term complications linked to his diabetes due to the failure to properly manage his condition.” In a court appearance on 3 June this year – day 87 of the trial – Mr Lai had a fever and was shivering. Observers noted his significant weight loss and increasing frailty. Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC said: “International law is clear: it is always unlawful for a prisoner to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. This unlawful, appalling treatment of Mr Lai must end.”

Mr Lai, the founder of Apple Daily newspaper, has been in jail since December 2020. He has already served several prison sentences on multiple trumped up charges, including 13 months for lighting a candle and saying a prayer at a vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He is currently on trial under Hong Kong’s draconian National Security Law, which was imposed by Beijing in 30 June 2020, and could face life imprisonment.

Even before the trial began, the blatant injustice of it all was clear. Mr Lai was not even allowed to be represented by his first choice of lawyer. British barrister Tim Owen KC had been appointed as Mr Lai’s counsel, and Hong Kong’s top court – the Court of Final Appeal – approved the choice. But the Hong Kong government rejected this and banned Mr Owen from taking on the case.

The regime appears intent on dragging out the trial for as long as possible. On 11 June this year the prosecution closed its case, and the trial has now been adjourned for four months, to 20 November, when Mr Lai is expected to take the stand after a submission by the defence that there was no case to answer was rejected in July. Originally expected to last 80 days, the trial now is unlikely to reach a verdict before the end of this year and sentencing will take place next year. They seem determined to prolong the pain and uncertainty, and keep Mr Lai behind bars for as long as possible.

The prosecution’s case is ludicrous and the ‘evidence’ presented to support the charge of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces” is absurd. It included naming several foreign nationals, including myself, the Executive Director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) Luke de Pulford and IPAC’s Co-Chair, former Conservative Party Leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith,  former US Consul-General to Hong Kong James Cunningham, former US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and the founder of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign Bill Browder, as examples of Mr Lai’s “external political connections”. Our headshots were reportedly displayed in court. I felt very honoured to be in such company.

In May this year, a group of current and former Parliamentarians from nine countries, including Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Baroness Helena Kennedy KC, Lord Alton of Liverpool and Japan’s former defence minister Gen Nakatani, wrote to the Hong Kong authorities demanding to be called as witnesses. They had been cited several times in the trial but had never been formally contacted, a point which “undermines the integrity of the investigation”.

After receiving no response, they wrote again in June, saying: “Our names were mentioned in the case hundreds of times. Our emails, speeches and online content have been played for hours in your courtrooms… Yet nobody in Hong Kong has approached any of us for a statement or evidence. Not once.” They added: “In any normal rule of law system, this would represent a serious failure in both the investigative and judicial processes.”

But what are the crimes we are supposed to have colluded or conspired with Mr Lai to commit? In my own case, the evidence presented involved messages exchanged between Mr Lai and myself. All perfectly innocuous, normal and entirely legitimate. One was a WhatsApp message he sent me in 2019 – predating the National Security Law – asking me if I could ask the last Governor of Hong Kong, Lord (Chris) Patten, if he would provide a comment to one of Mr Lai’s Apple Daily reporters. A perfectly normal thing for a newspaper proprietor to ask.

As Ms Gallagher brilliantly puts it, in reality Mr Lai is charged with the crimes of conspiracy to commit journalism, conspiracy to talk about politics to politicians, and conspiracy to raise human rights concerns with human rights organisations. It is a farcical trial.

The appeal to the Special Rapporteur follows a report by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres published last week, which raises concerns about reprisals against Mr Lai, his son Sebastien and their international legal team. The Secretary-General notes continuing harassment, including the fact that “the legal team’s family members reportedly received threats over email and social media, while the international legal team continued to receive death and rape threats and to suffer repeated attempts by unknown sources to hack their email and bank accounts.”

Ms Gallagher described the reprisals as “an attack on the legal profession and on the international human rights system” as well as an attack on Mr Lai’s right “to vindicate his internationally protected rights through UN mechanisms”. Most of all, she added, “they send a chilling message to others: if you raise concerns with the United Nations, the PRC and HKSAR authorities may criminalise and intimidate you for doing so. These are bully tactics by a bully government.”

So what should be done? The UN must respond rapidly and robustly to the appeal that has been submitted, but so too should governments, especially our own. Sebastien Lai said: “I urge the United Nations and our Government, the UK, to take immediate action to end his ordeal and ensure his release, before it is too late.” The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary should meet at the earliest opportunity with Sebastien, and should publicly and repeatedly demand Mr Lai’s immediate and unconditional release at every opportunity. The Church too should speak out. Pope Francis, who has just concluded a long visit to Asia, should pray for Jimmy Lai when he prays the Angelus next Sunday, and the Vatican should demand that Mr Lai’s right to receive Communion regularly be restored and respected. Mr Lai deserves to be honoured, not jailed – and we must all keep him in our prayers daily.

This article was published in The Tablet on 16 September 2024.