The UK foreign secretary has said a jail term handed down by a Hong Kong court to pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai is “tantamount to a life sentence”.
The media tycoon and British citizen was found guilty of two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one count of publishing seditious materials in December last year.
The 78-year-old had denied all the charges against him, saying in court he was a “political prisoner” facing persecution from Beijing.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper agreed with that assessment and, in a statement, called the sentence a “politically motivated prosecution” aimed at Mr Lai “for exercising his right to freedom of expression”.
“For the 78-year-old, this is tantamount to a life sentence. I remain deeply concerned for Mr Lai’s health, and I again call on the Hong Kong authorities to end his appalling ordeal and release him on humanitarian grounds, so that he may be reunited with his family,” she added.
Mr Lai’s lawyer gave no comment when asked if he would appeal his sentence.
On Sunday, the Hong Kong court said that Lai’s sentence was in the most severe penalty “band” for offences of a “grave nature”, and that it was enhanced by his being the “mastermind” and driving force behind foreign collusion conspiracies.
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Lai, who founded the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, was arrested in August 2020 after China imposed a national security law following massive anti-government protests in Hong Kong.
The longstanding critic of the Chinese Communist Party had previously been sentenced for several lesser offences during his five years in prison.
Lai has spent more than 1,800 days in solitary confinement. His family say his health has worsened as a result and that he suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and heart palpitations.
The head of Hong Kong police’s National Security Department said on Monday, however, that claims of his frail health are “exaggerated”.
Speaking after the verdict, Sky’s Asia correspondent Helen-Ann Smith said that she spoke to Lai’s biographer Mark Clifford last month.
“He’s really the embodiment of what they fear,” she cites the author and close friend of the jailed tycoon as saying.
“A principled person, absolutely refusing to back down, smart, articulate, and crucially with a platform.”
Lai’s plight has been criticised by world leaders, including US President Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Sir Keir
Starmer.
Sir Keir discussed the case with Chinese leader Xi Jinping last month in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, according to people briefed on the talks.
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Britain’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, and China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, were also present.
“I raised the case of Jimmy Lai and called for his release,” Sir Keir told MPs in parliament after his trip. “Those discussions will continue, and the foreign secretary is in touch with Mr Lai’s family.”
Several Western diplomats told Reuters news agency that negotiations to free Lai would likely start in earnest after his sentencing, and depending on whether he appeals.
Lai was born in mainland China but fled to Hong Kong at the age of 12, after stowing away on a fishing boat. Here, he began working as a child labourer in a garment factory.
He went on to build a fortune with the fashion empire Giordano and, after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when thousands of people protested for political reforms in Beijing, he became a democracy advocate and turned his hand to newspapers.
Ahead of the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from the UK to China, he started the Chinese-language newspaper Apple Daily in an attempt to maintain freedom of speech.
The paper was staunchly pro-democratic and did not shy away from criticising authorities in Beijing.
Around the same time, in 1994, he became a full British citizen. He has never held a Chinese or Hong Kong passport, but is seen as a Chinese citizen by Hong Kong authorities.
It was his pro-democratic beliefs that led to Lai becoming a key figure in the 2019 protests in Hong Kong, spurred by Beijing’s tightening squeeze on wide-ranging freedoms. Lai’s Apple Daily newspaper backed the protesters, criticising the government reforms.
Lai and his sons were arrested in August 2020 after police raided the offices of the Apple Daily publisher, Next Digital. He was granted bail, but this was overturned in December of the same year, when Lai was charged with fraud.
He was charged under the very national security laws, put in place in 2020, that he had protested.
On 15 December, he was found guilty of collusion with foreign forces, as well as conspiracy to print and distribute seditious publications.
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Speaking to Reuters after the verdict, a former Apple Daily reporter who gave his name as Wong said that “now that ‘red lines’ have formally become part of the judgments and sentences, the news industry – already severely weakened – will shrink even further”.
He added: “If the sentences are used to set the boundaries at the maximum level, it won’t just add insult to injury for press freedom; it will be an avalanche.”
Elaine Pearson, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, added that the “harsh” imprisonment is “effectively a death sentence” for Lai.
“A sentence of this magnitude is both cruel and profoundly unjust,” she said.
“Lai’s years of persecution show the Chinese government’s determination to crush independent journalism and silence anyone who dares to criticise the Communist Party.”
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Meanwhile, the Taiwanese government called for Lai’s release in a statement from its China-policy-making Mainland Affairs Council.
“Jimmy Lai’s harsh sentence under Hong Kong’s National Security Law not only deprives him of his personal liberty and tramples on freedom of speech and press freedom, but also denies the people’s basic right to hold those in power accountable,” it said.
