The International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) condemns in the strongest possible terms the conviction of Jimmy Lai, founder of the Apple Daily newspaper in Hong Kong. His conviction was a foregone conclusion after a dishonestly conducted and politically motivated trial designed to destroy the most influential pro-democracy voice in Hong Kong under a veneer of legality.
Jimmy Lai is a 78-year-old man, in ill-health, who has been held in solitary confinement for over 1,800 days. He is already serving a sentence of over five years in relation to a fraud dispute. His sentence per his conviction this month - a maximum of life imprisonment - now represents a death sentence unless urgent action is taken by world leaders to seek his release. The international community must respond with the outcry that this lawfare warrants. In particular, as Mr Lai is a British citizen, the IBAHRI calls upon the United Kingdom to negotiate his transfer to the UK immediately. This is a test of the UK government's commitment to human rights and freedom of expression as Mr Lai must not be allowed to pay this price for his work defending democratic values.
There is no doubt that Mr Lai's conviction for 'conspiracy to collude with foreign forces' and 'conspiracy to publish seditious material' under the National Security Law and colonial-era sedition law is in fact the criminalisation of his journalism. His conviction in spite of firm objection from world leaders, United Nations-appointed experts and international civil society threatens the tenets of our international rules-based order. The National Security Law has been widely condemned as being entirely contrary to international law, but it has been applied broadly in Hong Kong for political ends with impunity.
Mr Lai's conviction is the final blow to Hong Kong's democracy and rule of law. It forms part of a broader trend of the arbitrary detention of thousands of opposition figures and independent journalists and activists, and the wholesale destruction of the independent press. Those serving as the last line of defence of democracy have been systematically wiped out, and Jimmy Lai has been made an example of to intimidate others into silence. This repression of those speaking out against human rights violations in Hong Kong has also crossed borders to become transnational. The suppression of independent voices both within Hong Kong and across borders must be more firmly addressed as a grave threat to national and international security.
