Jimmy Lai's British Defenders Need to Find Their Spines
A new book details the life of the British citizen and pro-democracy Hong Kong newspaper proprietor, currently in prison on national security charges.
Jimmy Lai, British citizen and pro-democracy Hong Kong newspaper proprietor, remains in prison on national security charges.
Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer raised the case of Jimmy Lai when he met China’s President Xi Jinping at November’s Group of 20 summit in Brazil, before moving swiftly on to other subjects. Three months on, the Hong Kong newspaper proprietor remains in prison and on trial on national security charges while the UK seeks to accelerate a reset of economic ties with the world’s second-largest economy.
Hong Kong authorities arrested Lai, a British citizen in his late 70s, in retaliation for the businessman’s support of pro-democracy protests that convulsed the city in 2019. They seized his assets and forced the closure of the media business that he founded in the 1990s and turned into one of the city’s most popular news providers. Lai is the most visible symbol of a crackdown on Hong Kong’s civil society, encompassing political activists, journalists, lawyers, trade unionists, teachers and others.