UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion reiterates her call for Jimmy Lai’s release
Sebastien Lai has today addressed the UN Human Rights Council about the case of his father, Jimmy Lai, in the interactive dialogue with UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion, Ms Irene Khan. Mr Lai, founder of the newspaper Apple Daily, has been unlawfully and arbitrarily detained in Hong Kong for more than 1600 days and held in prolonged solitary confinement. Ms Khan reiterated her call for Mr Lai’s release, stating that he should not be held in prolonged detention at his age and emphasised that ‘he should not be prosecuted at all’.
This follows a range of international complaints by Mr Lai’s international legal team, Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, Jonathan Price KC, Tatyana Eatwell, Jennifer Robinson and Martha Spurrier. These complaints have resulted in a number of UN communications to China and Hong Kong and a ruling from the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that Mr Lai is being unlawfully and arbitrarily detained. Both the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and five UN experts have called for Mr Lai’s immediate and unconditional release.
In addressing the Council, Sebastien Lai said:
In recent years there has been an escalation in the detention, harassment, and persecution of journalists and writers for their reporting on local, national or international events, including on elections. Hong Kong SAR, once my home and a bastion of rights and freedoms in the Asia Pacific, is now emblematic of this trend.
Independent newspapers, like Apple Daily, that fearlessly sought out and reported on the truth, exposed corruption and abuse of power, have been shut down. Journalists have been prosecuted for sedition, for writing and publishing articles expressing opinions critical of the Chinese Communist Party.
My father is one of the people being prosecuted.
My name is Sebastien Lai, and my father, Jimmy Lai founded Apple Daily. He is a publisher, writer and journalist, who has been imprisoned in Hong Kong, in solitary confinement, for 4.5 years. His latest trial under the draconian National Security Law makes clear that he is on trial because of his peaceful expression of opinion and for supporting democratic values. Now 77, he faces the rest of his life in prison for providing an essential service to the people of Hong Kong and for standing up for democracy.
…But it’s not just my father. Many others who have sought to peacefully express their opinion, by peaceful demonstration, on social media, in the media, have been arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned in Hong Kong.
Sebastien Lai called on Hong Kong to release his father and appealed to the UN and UN member states to raise Mr Lai’s case with Hong Kong and China and call for his release.
The Special Rapporteur, Ms Khan, raised specific concern about Mr Lai’s case, the only individual case she addressed in her closing remarks. Ms Khan called on Hong Kong and China to take the action UN experts have called for – his immediate release – noting that he should not be held in prolonged pre-trial detention at his age and that ‘he should not be prosecuted at all’.
Sebastien Lai addressed the Council on behalf of and with the support of PEN International.
