Media Freedom in Hong Kong – the case of Jimmy Lai

At an event at London’s Frontline Club on 12 January 2023, Sebastien Lai spoke to assembled journalists and media workers about his father’s plight.

Jimmy Lai is currently in prison in Hong Kong following conviction on one of a string of spurious cases brought against him by the Hong Kong authorities. Mr Lai is the founder of Next Digital, which until it was shuttered by the authorities was Hong Kong’s leading independent media outlet, publishing the only major Chinese language newspaper which was not State controlled and a thorn in the side of the increasingly pro-Beijing regime.

In his remarks, Sebastien Lai quoted the tribute made to his father by Common, the Academy Award winning hip hop artist, in 2015 when TIME Magazine named Jimmy Lai as one of the world’s 100 most influential people:

“There are those who, when given the keys to wealth and the perks of the Establishment, choose not to rock the boat because of the backlash they might face. Jimmy Lai is not such a person.

Though he went from a child laborer in a garment factory to owning his own clothing line and media company, he rejected complacency and the status quo when he chose to criticize a powerful government and support a primarily student-led democracy movement in his beloved Hong Kong.”[1]

Sebastien urged governments, including the British government, not to accept the fiction being peddled by the Hong Kong authorities that the rule of law still applies in the Region.

Recalling his father’s own words, Sebastien reminded the audience that, “The cheapest currency in an autocratic country is fear.”

The event at the Frontline Club was chaired by Julie Posseti, Global Director of Research at the International Centre for Journalists. Opening the event, Julie Posetti said that, “Jimmy Lai’s case is emblematic of this broader deterioration of rights in Hong Kong and the crackdown on dissent, peaceful protest, freedom of expression and press freedom.”

Also speaking in support of Mr Lai were Matthew Caruana Galizia, Rebecca Vincent and Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, who leads Mr Lai’s international legal team.

Matthew Caruana Galizia, director of the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation – established to honour the memory and work of Matthew’s mother, the Maltese investigative journalist murdered in 2017 – reminded the audience that his mother had faced similar threats and judicial abuse during her lifetime to those faced by Jimmy Lai, having been arrested at a pro-democracy demonstration aged 19 and then, when her journalism rattled the establishment, facing arson attacks and a slew of spurious law suits simply for speaking out.

“Why does the UK government feel like it can’t say anything about Jimmy Lai?” asked Caruana Galizia.

Rebecca Vincent, Director of Operations and Campaigns, Reporters without Borders (RSF), said noted the precipitous fall in Hong Kong’s ranking on RSF’s annual Press Freedom Index, from 18th place in 2002, to 148th place in 2022, indicative of the Region’s slide into autocracy and the abandonment of the rule of law in favour of direct control from Beijing.

Vincent decried the disappearance from the landscape of Next Digital, Apple Daily’s parent company and only two years ago the largest independent media company in Hong Kong and the surrounding region. Its removal through corporate capture by the Hong Kong authorities is “a disaster for media freedom and pluralism in the region”, Vincent said. She called for immediate steps to reinstate conditions in which an independent media is able to operate in Hong Kong.

Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC described what was happening to him as ‘lawfare.’. “The authorities have weaponised the law in multiple ways, all attempting to silence him, to cow him – for his journalism and his pro-democracy work,”, she said.

Gallagher concluded with Mr Lai’s own words when interviewed by the New York Times in 2019: “China’s leaders know that once they cow you, they can always cow you. Once they have you in their pocket they will always squeeze you.” She added, “but Mr Lai has certainly not been cowed. And he certainly is not in the authorities’ pocket. For that, he has been targeted for decades and now faces the rest of his life behind bars.” 

More information can be seen at @supportjimmylai on social media (Twitter, Instagram and Facebook) and at the hashtag #FreeJimmyLai.

[1] https://time.com/collection-post/3823046/jimmy-lai-2015-time-100/