Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai in a July 1, 2020, file photo.Vincent Yu/The Associated Press
Amnesty International on Wednesday designated Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai a “prisoner of conscience,” along with two human rights lawyers imprisoned in Hong Kong and China.
Mr. Lai, publisher of the now-shuttered pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily, faces up to life in prison for sedition and “colluding with foreign forces.” He has pled not guilty and is expected to begin testifying in his own defence in November, more than four years after he was first detained.
For years, Chinese propaganda blamed Mr. Lai and his newspaper for riling up anti-government sentiment in the former British colony. After the passage of a draconian national security law in 2020, in response to large-scale protests the year before, Mr. Lai was hit with numerous prosecutions, and has already been convicted on several cases of unauthorized assembly.
In a statement, Amnesty said Mr. Lai had been targeted “amidst a broader dismantling of human rights and civic space in Hong Kong” since the passage of the 2020 security law.
The Hong Kong government did not immediately respond to Amnesty’s announcement Wednesday. In the past it has dismissed criticism of Mr. Lai’s treatment as smears and accused outside parties of seeking to interfere in the city’s judicial process.
Along with Mr. Lai, Amnesty also designated two human rights lawyers, Chow Hang-tung and Ding Jiaxi. The group defines a prisoner of conscience as someone “imprisoned solely because of their political, religious or other conscientiously held beliefs” or identity, and has “not used violence or advocated violence or hatred in the circumstances leading to their detention.”
Ms. Chow, a barrister, was convenor of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, a group that organized annual vigils to remember the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators around Tiananmen Square.
In two separate cases, Ms. Chow received a combined total of 22 months in prison for attempting to hold vigils in 2020 and 2021, after the government moved to stamp out the practice, long seen as a symbol of Hong Kong’s relative autonomy and political freedoms.
She also faces a far stiffer sentence under the security law for allegedly “inciting subversion,” in a case that is expected to finally reach trial next May.
Last year, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention urged the “immediate and unconditional release” of Ms. Chow, who it said had been subjected to an “arbitrary deprivation of liberty.” The Hong Kong government rejected the group’s findings and accused the UN body of interfering in Ms. Chow’s case.
Mr. Ding was sentenced by a Chinese court to 12 years in prison last April for “subverting state power.” He is one of dozens of human rights lawyers targeted in China in recent years, several of whom have also been handed lengthy prison terms.
Earlier this year, Mr. Ding and another lawyer, Xu Zhiyong, were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by a pair of U.S. lawmakers, along with Mr. Lai and jailed Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti.
Amnesty’s China director, Sarah Brooks, said the designation of Mr. Lai, Ms. Chow and Mr. Ding as prisoners of conscience was intended to bring greater attention and international scrutiny to their cases.
“The ongoing detentions of Chow, Ding and Lai demonstrate the continuing failure of the authorities in China to uphold their international obligations,” she said. “Their prosecution lays bare the cowardice of state officials who cannot accept criticism, whether from international experts or from their own citizens.”