China referred to UN for torture of freedom fighter Jimmy Lai

Entrepreneur Jimmy Lai is sitting in a Chinese cell today because he stayed in Hong Kong to fight for freedom, fully knowing the dangers he faced.

More than 23 hours a day in a Chinese prison cell. Virtually no access to sunlight or medical care or exercise. Those are the conditions 76-year-old Jimmy Lai has endured day after day, year after year, since he was arrested under China’s national security law nearly four years ago, according to his international legal team.

That legal team submitted an urgent appeal to the United Nations last week on behalf of Hong Kong’s most famous freedom fighter, alleging that China’s detainment of the media mogul is torture. 

“International law is clear: It is always unlawful for a prisoner to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and States must protect prisoners from such treatment,” said Caoilfhionn Gallagher, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers who represents Jimmy Lai and his son, Sebastian.

Lai, a businessman and prominent critic of the Chinese Communist Party’s policies in Hong Kong, was arrested in August 2020 after Hong Kong police raided the Apple Daily, a popular newspaper Lai owned and operated that was critical of China’s violation of the “one country, two systems” agreement.  

Lai was released on bail but was rearrested several months later under China’s national security law, legislation the CCP passed amid the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 that, among other things, criminalizes anything deemed to be “undermining the power or authority of the central government.”

Following Lai’s imprisonment, the Apple Daily continued to publish until June 23, 2021, when the newspaper printed its last edition, shortly after Beijing seized its funds. 

Lai, who will turn 77 in December, has been in prison since his second arrest. He has been repeatedly denied the right to obtain a U.K. human rights lawyer, and Amnesty International has declared Lai’s trial a “sham” and a blatant attack on the press freedom that Hong Kongers were promised when Britain handed the territory back to China in 1997.

“The prosecution of Jimmy Lai shows how Hong Kong’s repressive National Security Law is being used to stifle press freedom and crush civil society,” Amnesty International’s Sarah Brooks said.

On Thursday, Lai’s legal team submitted an appeal to the U.N.’s special rapporteur on torture, Alice Edwards, detailing the conditions of his detainment and stating that the inhumane conditions Lai is enduring pose a grave risk to his life, as well as his physical and mental health.

I wrote about Lai earlier this year after watching the 2023 documentary The Hong Konger. 

Produced by the Acton Institute, the film explores Lai’s life from poverty on the streets of Canton to his rise to billionaire entrepreneur and ultimate imprisonment by the CCP for peacefully resisting the Chinese government’s increasingly authoritarian policies in Hong Kong, dating back to the “Umbrella” protests of 2014. Later, during the 2019-2020 Hong Kong protests, Lai became the face of peaceful resistance to Beijing’s encroachments on the Western values Hong Kongers had long enjoyed, including free speech, free press, and democracy. 

In May, I pointed out that for his resistance, Lai faced the very real possibility of dying alone in a Chinese prison. Lai’s son, Sebastian, agrees. 

“My father has endured so much for standing up for his beliefs and for the people of Hong Kong,” he said. “He … faces the risk of dying behind bars.”

Lai is sitting in a Chinese cell today because he stayed in Hong Kong to fight for freedom, fully knowing the dangers he faced. 

“I am not leaving Hong Kong. I will stay and fight until the last day, whether or not I am a prime target of Beijing’s use of national security laws to suppress,” Lai told Deutsche Welle months before his arrest.

I often wonder why the wealthy entrepreneur stayed in Hong Kong. He could have fought for freedom in London, New York City, Paris, or some other city where his life and freedom would not have been at risk. The answer, I believe, is that Jimmy Lai believed the world cares as much about freedom as he does. 

He saw firsthand the fruits produced by free markets and the hell produced by socialism. As a child, Lai watched the communist state take everything from his prosperous father, leaving his family in abject poverty. He was able to escape China for Hong Kong, stowing away on a fishing boat, and later became a billionaire by launching a clothing empire.

Yet, in a bitter twist of fate, following the handover of Hong Kong, Lai was forced to watch China put his beloved Hong Kong on the road to serfdom through its authoritarian and collectivist policies. 

My fear is that Jimmy Lai will die in a Chinese prison because the world doesn’t love freedom as much as he does. My hope is that I’m wrong and his courage will inspire millions to see what freedom truly is.

This article first appeared in The Washington Examiner.