'On his birthday, a reminder of why we must not forget Jimmy Lai as he continues to suffer inhuman cruelty and deprivation behind bars', Benedict Rogers

Jimmy Lai’s spirit is unbroken but his health is declining

Today is Jimmy Lai’s 77th birthday, and for the fifth year in a row he is marking it in solitary confinement in Stanley Prison, Hong Kong, instead of with his family and friends. Officially, his date of birth in his passport is in November – but today is the day his family usually celebrates.

Jimmy Lai is a symbol of Hong Kong’s struggle for freedom, and its most prominent political prisoner. He has been arrested multiple times for his pro-democracy campaigning, and has been in prison for the past four years, since his bail was revoked and he was remanded in custody on 3 December 2020. Apart from a week’s release on bail for Christmas that year, when he was able to be with his family, he has been behind bars ever since.

A devout Catholic, Mr Lai has reportedly been denied the right to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion for the past year. Unless the authorities change that ruling, he will not receive the Eucharist today, on his birthday, or on Christmas Day – a heartbreaking thought for any Catholic.

Turning 77 today, concerns are growing for Mr Lai’s health. He is reportedly denied access to independent medical care, and kept alone in his cell for over 23 hours a day, permitted just 50 minutes a day for exercise in a confined space. Apart from occasional family visits, he has little human contact or access to daylight.

Mr Lai’s life story is extraordinary. It is a literal rags to riches tale. Born in mainland China, he fled the famine caused by Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward in 1959, arriving alone in Hong Kong as a stowaway on a boat at the age of just 12 years old. He worked as a child labour in garment factories and then, having worked his way up, started his own business. That became a hugely successful chain of fashion retail stores known as Giordano, which turned Mr Lai into a billionaire. 

But when the Tiananmen Square massacre took place in Beijing in 1989, Mr Lai knew that making money was not satisfying by itself, and so he devoted himself to the pro-democracy cause. He founded an independent media group, starting with Next magazine and then the hugely successful Apple Daily newspaper, the largest circulation Chinese language daily newspaper in Hong Kong. 

His steadfast opposition to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime in Beijing and its apparatchiks in Hong Kong brought him constant threats and harassment, but he never waivered. And the most extraordinary thing about him is that he had every opportunity to leave Hong Kong before being arrested, but chose not to do so. A British citizen with properties in several cities around the world, including London, New York and Taipei, he could have gone anywhere in the world. But like the Russian dissidents Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza, he chose to stay with his people and await his fate, knowing that would mean jail. As the former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky writes in the foreword to a new biography of Mr Lai, when he asked him why he did not try to escape Hong Kong, Mr Lai replied: “I can’t do it. I called my people to fight. They look at me. I can’t let them down.”

That quote, however, requires some clarification, because one point that is striking about Mr Lai’s advocacy is that it has always been non-violent. His “fight” was always peaceful. He never condoned violence, nor did he ever advocate for Hong Kong independence. He only ever campaigned, peacefully, for freedom, human rights, democracy and the rule of law – which had been promised to Hong Kong under its own mini-constitution, the Basic Law, and an international treaty, the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which paved the way for the city’s handover to China. 

In the final weeks before his arrest, Natan Sharansky spoke via Zoom with Mr Lai three times. Mr Lai was expecting to be arrested, and was preparing himself for the possibility he may spend the rest of his life in jail. Mr Sharansky, who spent nine years in the Soviet Gulag, recalls how mentally prepared Mr Lai was. “This brave man hardly needed any advice. What I learned from hard experience, he grasped instinctively,” he writes. “He already understood that jail can’t humiliate you; you can only humiliate yourself. And while your body may be shackled in prison, your spirit can be free.” From everything I know of Mr Lai, that is so true.

And yet however unbroken his spirit is, his health is declining. His prolonged trial, under Hong Kong’s draconian National Security Law, appears designed to keep him in jail for as long as possible even before he is convicted and sentenced – and will most likely result in a severe, and grossly unjust, sentence. Unless international pressure upon Beijing and the Hong Kong authorities is intensified, Mr Lai may very well die in jail.

The charges against Mr Lai are absurd, and the trial is farcical. He was denied the right to be represented by his first choice of legal counsel, Timothy Owen KC, even though Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal and its lower courts had upheld that right. In the prosecution’s case against him, evidence of his alleged “crimes” included conversations with foreign politicians, diplomats and activists, including myself. As the head of his international legal team, Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, puts it so brilliantly, Mr Lai is in effect charged with the crimes of conspiracy to commit journalism, conspiracy to talk about politics with politicians, and conspiracy to discuss human rights issues with human rights organisations. Mr Lai is not a criminal who should be jailed, but a hero and a champion of freedom who deserves to be honoured, celebrated and freed.

So today, his 77th birthday, and indeed every day, it is vital that we do everything possible to ensure he is not forgotten. Catholics should pray for Mr Lai at Mass today. Parishes should host screenings of the Acton Institute’s brilliant documentary film about Mr Lai, called The Hong Konger. Pope Francis – who so far has said nothing publicly about the unjust imprisonment of Hong Kong’s most prominent lay Catholic – should pray for him at the Angelus, today and in coming weeks. And readers should buy the new biography, titled The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic. Written by my friend Mark Clifford, about my friend Mr Lai, it is a compelling account of one of the bravest and most inspiring men I have ever had the privilege to know. 

Let us pray and work to ensure that today is the last time Mr Lai has to spend a birthday in solitary confinement in prison, and that next year he is able to celebrate at home with his family and friends. Let us help #FreeJimmyLai.

This article was published in The Tablet on 8 December 2024.