Son of imprisoned Jimmy Lai pleads with Canada to put pressure on Hong Kong to show mercy

Publisher of the fiercely independent, pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper has been in prison for four years

Published Sep 21, 2024  •  Last updated 0 minutes ago  •  4 minute read

Sebastian Lai, whose father, Jimmy Lai, has been imprisoned by the government of China. Photo by Peter J. Thompson /National Post

Jimmy Lai could well have decamped to Canada as the Chinese Communist Party started strangling Hong Kong’s freedoms four years ago.

The publisher of the fiercely independent, pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper — effectively shut down by the government three years ago — owns hotels in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., and has a twin sister and other family members here, son Sebastien noted this week on a stopover in Toronto. Sebastien himself says he has fond memories of visiting Canada as a child. This is where he learned English and attended summer camp in Ontario cottage country.

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But instead of fleeing the enclave when Beijing imposed a widely criticized national security law (NSL), arrested pro-democracy politicians and otherwise clamped down on free-wheeling Hong Kong, the elder Lai decided to stay.

The tycoon hoped to spare the paper’s journalists persecution by offering himself up as the face of Apple Daily, says Sebastien.

“He stayed to act as a lightning rod for these people. He knew that the Hong Kong government wanted heads, so to speak, or people in prison,” the son said in an interview.

“On one hand, I’m incredibly proud of him. I can’t really imagine how hard it is, the strength it takes to do this for 30 years, when you could very well argue that he could have had a much more comfortable life just bending the knee.”

The result of Lai remaining was shocking, but somewhat predictable. The publisher was arrested when 200 police officers raided Apple Daily in 2020 and has spent most of the last four years in prison, the most prominent victim of the crackdown. He’s in the midst of a trial on charges under the national security law, though it appears his chief offence was merely to loudly criticize Hong Kong’s rulers.

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To make matters worse, said Sebastien, the 77-year-old is being kept in conditions that would seem more suited to the most dangerous of criminals — solitary confinement, sweltering temperatures, lack of daylight, no independent medical care for his diabetes. The devout Catholic has been denied the opportunity to take Communion, he says.

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And there are signs Jimmy’s health has recently taken a turn for the worse, to the point he has been unable to attend some court appearances, said his son.

Sebastien is worried his father will not survive the ordeal, even if the court metes out less than the life sentence allowed under the NSL. He has been unable to talk to him in four years.

“He’s practically being baked alive. It breaks my heart,” said Sebastien. “He’s an elderly man now, but given the conditions, it wouldn’t be surprising if he just passed away in jail … It’s not easy to know that your father could die at any moment and that he would never get that time (in jail) back.”

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The Hong Kong government recently denied the allegations of mistreatment, and criticized lawyers for Lai who complained to the United Nations human rights council about it.

This picture taken on June 16, 2020, shows pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai during an interview at the Next Digital offices in Hong Kong. Photo by ANTHONY WALLACE /Getty

Both the Canadian House of Commons and Senate unanimously approved motions last year calling for Lai to be freed immediately, the Commons saying he “stands for so many of the values championed by Canadians.”

The son and his British legal advisers, aided by the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, are on a media tour, trying to raise awareness of his father’s plight, and put pressure on the Hong Kong government and courts to show some leniency to the elderly prisoner. His trial resumes in November.

Jimmy Lai — whose Chinese name is Lai Chee-ying — was born in southern China but sneaked into then-British-ruled Hong Kong when just 12 years old. He started his work life as a child labourer in a factory, but later built the Giordano clothing chain, with outlets across Asia, and Next Media. Next’s publications featured racy, tabloid-style journalism, as well as political reporting and commentary that became staunchly pro-democracy after the U.K. transferred Hong Kong to China in 1997.

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Apple Daily was one of the city’s most popular newspapers, while Lai himself became a stalwart of the pro-democracy movement, participating in the mass protests that filled Hong Kong’s streets in 2019. Though the demonstrations were largely peaceful, they at times became violent, and Beijing has claimed its clampdown was a response to that unrest.

Lai was charged under the NSL with colluding with foreign interests, the evidence including Twitter posts that urged foreign governments to impose sanctions over China’s treatment of Hong Kong.

When Hong Kong authorities froze Next Media’s assets in 2021, Apple Daily was forced to close its doors.

The Chinese government under President Xi Jinping has been relentless in suppressing dissent and punishing those it perceives as its enemies.

But Sebastien Lai believes that showing some compassion to his father would be to its advantage as it insists that Hong Kong — despite the crackdown — is still a city that welcomes foreign investment and respects the rule of law. On the other hand, treating Jimmy Lai harshly could backfire for Beijing, he said.

“They know that for a financial centre, that element of trust, of fairness is important,” said Sebastien. “And by highlighting what’s happened to my father, I’m also indirectly highlighting that Hong Kong is no longer a place where you could rely on that. It’s now a place where the government believes itself to be infallible … All they want to do is ‘security.’ And it’s a police state.”

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