Killing Hong Kong’s Lai would strengthen democracy message, son says

Washington – Locked up for more than four years and ailing, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai would only become a greater symbol if he died in prison, his son said.

On a visit to Washington, Mr Sebastien Lai was meeting US officials and lawmakers as he appealed for greater international pressure on China and Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing authorities to free his father.

“It’s horrible for me to say this, but if my father dies in prison, he’s actually a stronger symbol of freedom, of martyrdom for your beliefs,” Mr Lai said in an interview on Sept 8.

He said that freeing his father would be in Beijing’s own interest.

“As you’ve seen with a lot of dissidents, once they’re released, they lose a lot of that, quote-unquote, power,” he said.

“He’s already been there for five years. He’s served whatever sham sentence you brought against him.”

The elder Lai, 77, founded the Apple Daily, a popular pro-democracy tabloid that was shuttered as China clamped down on the metropolis, despite promises of a separate system when Britain handed it over in 1997.

A successful businessman and outspoken opponent of Beijing, Lai was arrested in late 2020 and has been behind bars since, with a judge in August saying only that his verdict would come “in good time”.

The charges against him could carry between 15 years and life in prison.

His health has significantly worsened as he is diabetic, receives limited medical care and has been kept in solitary confinement without air-conditioning in the sweltering Hong Kong heat, his son said.

The younger Lai said the last he heard about his father was that he experienced heart palpitations, an episode earlier described by his defence lawyers.

‘Very real consequences’

China imposed a draconian security law in Hong Kong in 2020 after massive and at times destructive protests against Beijing swept the global financial hub.

Mr Sebastien Lai said other countries should persuade China that if it should “go through with this and kill him, essentially, there will be very real consequences” for Hong Kong.

“Hong Kong is based on a strong, rigid legal system. That’s why it’s a financial centre. Without the strong, rigid legal system, it’s nothing,” he said.

Jimmy Lai visited Washington in 2019 to discuss pro-democracy protests with leaders, including then Vice-President Mike Pence.

Prosecutors later pointed to his meetings, calling them a conspiracy to collude with foreign forces to impose sanctions on China and Hong Kong.

US President Donald Trump, in an interview while on the campaign trail in 2024, said of Lai, “100 per cent, I’ll get him out”.

Since returning to the White House, Mr Trump has said he will at least try to free Lai. But the US President, long a harsh critic of China, has recently also spoken fondly of his relationship with President Xi Jinping.

The younger Lai voiced appreciation for Mr Trump’s efforts but expressed hope for a more outspoken stance by other Western countries, naming France.

He praised the stances of Germany as well as Britain, where his father holds nationality and where the younger Lai lives.

Mr Sebastien Lai said Britain understood the importance of defending a person who sacrificed himself for democracy.

“It doesn’t really get much better than that if you’re going to give someone citizenship.” AFP