‘For the 78-year-old, this is tantamount to a life sentence,’ UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said.
The heavy penalty handed down by a Hong Kong court to former media mogul Jimmy Lai under a Beijing-imposed national security law has drawn condemnation from governments and officials around the world, who call the move unjust and further evidence of the Chinese regime’s clampdown on the city’s dwindling freedoms.
Lai, a strident critic of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was sentenced to 20 years in prison for two counts of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces” under the national security law, as well as a count of printing seditious materials under a colonial-era law.
The ruling was delivered on Feb. 9 by three national security judges, handpicked by the city’s pro-Beijing government. Lai had denied all charges.
The sentence represents the harshest punishment to date under the security law, surpassing the previous record of a 10-year jail term handed down by Hong Kong’s High Court to Benny Tai, a legal scholar and pro-democracy campaigner, in 2024.
Lai, who suffers from diabetes and heart palpitations, has already been kept behind bars for five years and two months in Hong Kong. He now has 28 days to appeal the court ruling.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on the Hong Kong authorities to grant Lai humanitarian parole.
“The Hong Kong High Court’s decision to sentence Jimmy Lai to 20 years is an unjust and tragic conclusion to this case,” Rubio said in a Feb. 9 statement.
“It shows the world that Beijing will go to extraordinary lengths to silence those who advocate fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong, casting aside the international commitments Beijing made in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration.”
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said Lai, also a British national, was punished for “exercising his right to freedom of expression.”
“For the 78-year-old, this is tantamount to a life sentence,” Cooper said in a statement. “I remain deeply concerned for Mr. Lai’s health, and I again call on the Hong Kong authorities to end his appalling ordeal and release him on humanitarian grounds, so that he may be reunited with his family.”
Cooper said the Labor government “will rapidly engage further” on Lai’s case following the sentencing.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has confirmed that, during his recent visit to China, he raised Lai’s case directly with Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping and called for the former publisher’s release.
By Dorothy Li
