Calls for Jimmy Lai’s release have resounded worldwide. However, he’s likely to spend the rest of his life in jail

HONG KONG: After a panel of three judges found Jimmy Lai guilty last week, there have been statements from across the globe condemning the verdict and calling for his release.

On Dec 15, a panel of three judges found Lai, now 78, guilty of two counts of conspiring with foreign forces to threaten national security and one count of conspiracy to publish seditious material. The verdict on the media mogul’s case is widely seen as a test case for the future of press freedom in Hong Kong.

Lai’s family has asked the United Kingdom to do more to secure his release, given that he is a British citizen. After the verdict was announced, Lai’s son Sebastien said that the UK should make Lai’s release a a pre-condition to closer relationships with China.

Their larger concern has been over his health, which the family claims has declined steadily over the past five years since he’s been in jail. According to Lai’s daughter Claire, her father has lost over 10 kilos in less than a year and has diabetes, high blood pressure, heart problems, poor eyesight and hearing, and other health issues. Beijing, however, has maintained that Lai is receiving adequate medical care.

As can be expected, various human rights groups have also called for Lai’s release, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

On the political side, no less than United States President Donald Trump has urged the same, saying on Dec 15 that he had spoken to China’s President Xi Jinping about Lai, asking him to consider his release.

“He’s not well. He’s an older man, and he’s not well. So I did put that request out. We’ll see what happens,” Mr Trump said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio released a statement on the same day, noting that Lai had spent over 1,800 days in jail and urging the authorities to release him on humanitarian grounds.

On Dec 17, the Foreign Ministers of the G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, the US), and the High Representative of the European Union issued a joint statement condemning the prosecution of Lai under Hong Kong’s National Security Law and calling for his immediate release.

“We continue to express our concerns about deteriorating rights, freedoms, and autonomy in Hong Kong. Freedom of expression and opinion, and media freedom, are enshrined in Hong Kong’s Basic Law,” the statement reads.

The calls are unlikely to move Beijing, however, and the probability remains that Lai will spend the rest of his life in jail.

The statement from the G7 and the EU received swift backlash from the Commissioner’s Office of China’s Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong, which called it no more than “a piece of wasted paper,” according to a report in the South China Morning Post.

Endeavours to move China would be similar to “a mantis trying to stop a chariot or an ant trying to shake a tree,” said a spokesman from the office.

Hong Kong’s government, meanwhile, characterised G7’s criticism as “perfectly demonstrating their long-standing bullying behaviour, which is extremely ugly and despicable.”

The authorities have underlined that the verdict is a matter of the rule of law, as opposed to political persecution.

John Lee, Hong Kong’s chief executive, had welcomed the one-and-a-half-year long trial’s outcome, saying that the law never allows anyone to harm the country “under the guise of human rights, democracy and freedom.” /TISG

Read also: HK media mogul and Beijing critic Jimmy Lai charged under security law