'Pope Francis, Rishi Sunak must speak up for Jimmy Lai', Benedict Rogers

Is this too much to ask for, in response to gross injustice inflicted upon a British citizen who is a devout Catholic?

Today is Jimmy Lai’s 76th birthday. But instead of celebrating with his family and friends, the Hong Kong entrepreneur, media proprietor and pro-democracy campaigner is once again spending his birthday in jail.

A devout Catholic, Lai was first imprisoned on Dec. 3, 2020, and has spent the past three years in jail, except for eight days during Christmas that year when he was released on bail.

That was the last time he was able to celebrate Christmas at home with his family. His bail was revoked on New Year’s Eve and he has been in prison ever since.

Lai has already received multiple sentences on trumped-up charges. He has served a 13-month sentence simply for lighting a candle and saying a prayer at a vigil to mark the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and a 14-month sentence for participating in a peaceful protest in 2019.

On Dec. 10 last year — ironically, International Human Rights Day — he was sentenced to almost six years in jail, on a completely fabricated fraud charge. His use of a personal office in the building rented by his newspaper, Apple Daily, was deemed to be a lease violation and therefore a fraud.

The idea that the owner of a publication should not use office space in its building seems absurd, but even if technically there was a lease violation, in any normal legal system that would be a civil case and not an imprisonable offense.

However, Hong Kong’s legal system is no longer normal or independent.  The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is determined to weaponize the law against its critics, and no one more so than Lai.

Yet these sentences are just the beginning of the outrageous injustice Lai has endured. When he was first arrested in August 2020, he faced charges of “colluding with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security” under Hong Kong’s draconian new National Security Law. His trial on these counts has been repeatedly delayed, and he was denied his choice of legal counsel, British barrister Tim Owen, KC, whom the Hong Kong authorities rejected.

Lai’s National Security Law trial is expected to finally get underway later this month. No one expects him to receive a fair trial. Hong Kong’s secretary for security Chris Tang earlier this year hailed the fact that so far, national security cases have a 100 percent conviction rate.

The charges Lai faces could lead to a life sentence, and even if he receives the minimum sentence of ten years required by the law, he faces the prospect of dying in prison.

The international community must keep a clear spotlight on Lai, monitor his upcoming trial closely, and exert pressure for his release.

Taking the lead in this regard has been the United States, with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken repeatedly calling for his release. Lai has been adopted as a prisoner of conscience by the US Commission for International Religious Freedom due to his advocacy for religious freedom.

The European Union has also called for his release, and the previous British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly raised Lai’s case both at the United Nations Human Rights Council and on his summer visit to Beijing.

Also investigating the case is the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. But there is a need to do much, much more.

Among world leaders, there are two in particular who have a special responsibility to speak up for Lai: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Pope Francis.

Why? Because Lai is a British citizen and a prominent Catholic. His passport is British and that is the only passport he has, and his devotion to the Catholic faith is heartfelt and inspirational. Indeed, it has been reported that he spends most of his days in prison deep in prayer and study of the Bible and religious texts.

The least the prime minister of the country of which he is a citizen and the head of the Church to which he is so faithful could do is demand his release.

But others can also play their part.

Just over a month ago, ten Catholic bishops and archbishops from around the world, including two cardinals, published a petition for Lai's release. They included India’s Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal of Trivandrum, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, Sydney’s Archbishop Anthony Fisher, and others from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Lithuania, Nigeria, and the United States. Other cardinals, archbishops and bishops from around the world, and especially across Asia, should join the call.

Ever since it signed an agreement with Beijing on the appointment of bishops, the Vatican itself has shown a shocking reluctance to speak out for human rights and religious freedom in China or Hong Kong.

But even if they refuse to speak out for Lai publicly, the Vatican could surely use its channels with Beijing to raise his case. The Sino-Vatican deal has so far led to no gains for the Vatican, so it has little to lose by demanding the release of one of the most prominent Catholics in Hong Kong.

Lai is someone who should be honored and celebrated, not jailed. His rags-to-riches life story is one of Hong Kong’s most inspiring and extraordinary.

As a 12-year-old, Lai escaped the terror and famine of Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” as a stowaway in a boat, and arrived in Hong Kong. He began work as a child laborer in a garment factory, before achieving promotion to factory manager, and then founded his own business, the hugely successful clothing chain Giordano.

After the Tiananmen Square massacre, he branched out into publishing, establishing Next Magazine and then Apple Daily.

In 1997, he was baptized as a Catholic by Cardinal Joseph Zen, who was Hong Kong’s coadjutor bishop at the time. The documentary film The HongKonger, produced by the Acton Institute led by Father Robert Sirico, deserves to be watched widely. Indeed, the Vatican ought to host a screening.

So on Lai’s 76th birthday, will Pope Francis at the very least pray for him? This coming Sunday, Human Rights Day, couldn’t the Holy Father simply include a mention of Lai’s name as he prays the Angelus from his window above St Peter’s Square?

And couldn’t Rishi Sunak and his new Foreign Secretary David Cameron send birthday greetings to their imprisoned citizen — and publicly call for his release?

Are these small acts too much to ask for, in response to a gross injustice inflicted upon a truly great man?

This article was published in UCA News on 8 December 2023.