'The dismantling of press freedom in Hong Kong', Benedict Rogers

The unlawful, appalling treatment of Jimmy Lai and the systematic, organized attack on the media must stop

Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong media entrepreneur and pro-democracy campaigner who has been in prison for over three and a half years, has reportedly been denied the right to receive Holy Communion since last December.

For the devout Catholic who has described his faith as the “pinnacle of his life,” being banned from receiving the sacrament is the ultimate cruelty inflicted by the vindictive regime that has jailed him.

The news has been reported by The Pillar, and if true, amounts to a grave violation of religious freedom. Priests can still occasionally pay pastoral visits to him but are prohibited from bringing him Communion.

Pope Francis and the Vatican, together with Hong Kong’s Cardinal Stephen Chow, must now raise Lai’s case with the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities urgently, and speak out for him publicly. Catholics around the world should be encouraged by the Church to pray for Lai.

Pope Francis and the Vatican should also note an urgent appeal that Lai’s international legal team has submitted to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, Alice Edwards. It highlights Lai’s prolonged detention in solitary confinement and the fact that he is routinely permitted only 50 minutes a day for restricted exercise, and otherwise held in his cell for 23 hours 10 minutes each day. He has only very limited human contact or access to daylight.

Of most concern is Lai, aged 76, has been denied access to independent medical care. He suffers from diabetes, and as his international legal team emphasizes, “lack of specialized medical care increases the risk of long-term complications linked to his diabetes due to the failure to properly manage his condition.”

When he appeared in court on June 3 — day 87 of his trial under Hong Kong’s draconian National Security Law — Lai’s increased frailty and weight loss were noticed and he was feverish and shivering.

The trial, originally expected to last 80 days, is now unlikely to conclude before the end of this year. Although the prosecution closed its case in June, the trial has now been adjourned for four months, to Nov. 20, when Lai is expected to begin presenting his evidence. A submission by his defense team that there was no case to answer was rejected in July.

Lai, the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, has been in jail since his arrest in December 2020 and has already served several sentences on multiple unjust charges, including 13 months for lighting a candle and saying a prayer at a vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

If convicted of the charge of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces,” under the National Security Law which was imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing in June 2020, Lai could face life imprisonment.

Any prospect of a fair trial has been undermined from the start. The Hong Kong government denied him the right to his first choice of lawyer, British barrister Tim Owen, even though Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal had approved the appointment.

Both his domestic and international legal teams have been subjected to intense harassment and threats, as has his son Sebastien Lai — a concern noted in a report by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres himself last week.

The Secretary-General said 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.”

The head of Lai’s international legal team, Caoilfhionn Gallagher, described the reprisals as “an attack on the legal profession and on the international human rights system.” 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 criminalize and intimidate you for doing so. These are bully tactics by a bully government.”

The prosecution’s case has been deeply flawed throughout. On Jan. 31, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture wrote to the authorities in China, raising concerns that evidence from a key prosecution witness had been obtained through torture — a grave charge that should rule such evidence inadmissible.

For much of the case, the prosecution’s presentation has been farcical. The evidence includes naming several foreign nationals, including myself and prominent politicians and diplomats from the UK, US, Japan and elsewhere, as people with whom Lai supposedly colluded or conspired.

But what crime has he committed in collusion with us? Just one of the many absurd examples put forward as evidence was a WhatsApp message from Lai to me in 2019 — predating the National Security Law — asking me if I would ask the last governor of Hong Kong, Lord Chris Patten, to provide a comment to an Apple Daily journalist. An entirely normal and legitimate request from a newspaper publisher.

The urgent appeal submitted to the UN Special Rapporteur follows an intervention by five UN Special Rapporteurs in January, calling for Lai’s immediate and unconditional release.

Gallagher 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, and states must protect prisoners from such treatment. There is never a justification. And yet Jimmy Lai — an elderly and diabetic prisoner — has already endured three years and nine months in prolonged solitary confinement, spending over 23 hours a day in a cell; his access to human contact and daylight severely curtailed; and without access to independent medical care. This unlawful, appalling treatment of Mr. Lai must end.”

Bringing Lai’s plight to the attention of the UN again comes at the same time that the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) has highlighted the harassment, online and offline, of reporters from at least 13 media outlets in Hong Kong in a “systematic and organized attack.”

At a press conference last week, the HKJA’s Chair Selina Cheng said that since June, dozens of journalists have received emails and letters with defamatory content at their homes, workplaces and other venues.

The harassment included death threats, with photos of journalists posted alongside knives and shooting targets. Screenshots of these photos were sent to journalists and their parents in what Cheng described as a “clear effort to scare and intimidate them.”

Complaints were sent to family members, landlords, and employers of at least 15 journalists and some recipients were threatened that if they continued to associate with the journalists, they could be breaching Hong Kong’s national security laws.

Cheng added that the threats were not “aimed at specific reports or specific news outlets,” but instead were “targeted at the journalism industry as a whole.” The harassment since June amounts to the most widespread assault on journalists, with attacks in previous years being “quite sporadic,” she added.

“As long as they target enough people … [there will be] cases where they’re able to bend people to their will. I don’t believe that is right. That is why we’re making a loud call today saying we don’t accept such behavior,” Cheng appealed.

Hong Kong used to be a hub in Asia for vibrant, dynamic, free and independent media, but since the protests in 2019 — when journalists were attacked by the police — and the National Security Law in 2020, press freedom in the city has declined dramatically.

The forced closure of Lai’s Apple Daily newspaper and Stand News in 2021, and the conviction of Stand News editors last month, illustrate the dismantling of Hong Kong’s press freedom. The mistreatment of Lai in jail, and the increased harassment of journalists in the city, indicate even further deterioration.

The international community must not ignore these developments. We must speak up for press freedom and for the courageous Hong Kong journalists who endure threats and repression. We must mobilize the Church at every level throughout the world, from the pope and the Vatican to parishes and individuals, to pray for Jimmy Lai.

This article was published in UCA News on 16 September 2024.