MPs from around the world are urging their heads of state to follow Donald Trump’s call for jailed Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s release as he awaits a verdict.
Parliamentarians from 16 countries, ranging from the UK and Canada to Zambia and Paraguay, have written to their prime ministers and presidents in a coordinated global effort to get them to “form a united coalition” in support of Mr Lai.
The 77-year-old Apple Daily newspaper founder, who is a British citizen with no other passport, has been in prison in Hong Kong since December 2020 and is awaiting the final verdict in his trial, with no date set. It could come any day now.
He is accused of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and sedition under the national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing following pro-democracy protests he was involved with in 2019.
In August, the US president renewed his promise to “save” Mr Lai, saying he is “going to do everything” he can to get him freed, after initially pledging to “100% get him out” weeks before the US election last November.
Now, parliamentarians, including British MPs and Lords, who are members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), are calling on their leaders to follow suit.
In their letter, IPAC MPs, a group of politicians in different countries with an interest in China relations, have urged their state leaders to “join with” the US to “prioritise advocacy on Mr Lai’s behalf, and to stand in solidarity with other global leaders to form a united coalition in support of Mr Lai”.
The MPs wrote: “A clear and coordinated international response is essential to challenge the injustice he faces and to reaffirm the universal principles of democracy, human rights, and freedom of the press.”
They said without a globally coordinated intervention “at the highest levels” Mr Lai will be convicted and die in prison.
“We implore you to take up Mr Lai’s case personally, in coordination with other leaders of democratic countries,” they said.
Mr Lai’s son, Sebastien Lai, told Sky News last month that if the British government fails to act, “my father is most likely going to die in jail”.
The MPs have said Mr Lai is now an elderly man who has been separated from his family and held in solitary confinement for more than four years “simply for democratic values and the basic freedoms promised to the people of Hong Kong”.
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Signatory and UK Labour MP Sarah Champion, chair of the international development committee, told Sky News: “Jimmy Lai has been left to languish in solitary confinement for over four years, his imprisonment is a blatant violation of human rights and press freedom.
“A strong and united global response is needed and Britain must join with our allies in calling for his immediate release.”
MPs who are sending letters to their leaders come from: Albania, UK, Canada, France, Kenya, Sweden, Australia, Romania, Zambia, The Phillippines, the European Parliament, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Paraguay, Netherlands, New Zealand and Norway.
The Chinese embassy in London has previously denied claims the prosecution of Mr Lai is to silence criticism.
A spokesman said the UK’s previous remarks criticising Hong Kong over Mr Lai “confuse right and wrong and interfere with the rule of law in Hong Kong. We are firmly opposed to that”.
They have repeatedly said Hong Kong is governed by the rule of law and “any illegal criminal behaviour should be punished by law”.
