Press & Political Freedom On The Line In Our Region? Imprisoned Pro-democracy Activist Jimmy Lai’s Son Visits Australia

As relations with China improve after Premier Li’s visit, Sebastien Lai will visit Australia with international human rights experts Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC and well-known Australian barrister Jennifer Robinson to raise issues of human rights and democracy in our region. The trio will be speaking at events in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne about the far-reaching implications of Jimmy’s plight for press freedom, democracy and business in Hong Kong.

Jimmy Lai, activist, media entrepreneur, writer and founder of Apple Daily, is currently on trial in Hong Kong under the controversial new National Security Law (NSL) and faces life in prison. At 76, he is Hong Kong’s oldest political prisoner. Apple Daily was Hong Kong’s most popular Chinese language newspaper until its forced closure in 2021, which Amnesty International described as ‘the blackest day for media freedom in Hong Kong’.

Mr Lai has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, in recognition of the persecution he has faced for his work advocating for democracy and civil liberties in Hong Kong. His imprisonment is the highest profile case in Hong Kong and emblematic of the crackdown on freedom of the press, business and democracy in the region.

Now dedicating his time to advocating for his father’s release, Sebastien Lai is visiting Australia in late June to highlight his father’s case and what it might mean for our region.

At a time when Press Freedom in Hong Kong has slipped from number 18 in the world to around 140 in recent years, and Hong Kong is fast losing its reputation as a safe place for business and investment, this is an important discussion of the encroachment on media, political and economic freedom in our region.

Sebastien Lai says: 

"In persecuting one man, Chinese authorities are showing the world that nobody is safe from becoming a target in Hong Kong. My father was a business tycoon and media publisher to the largest newspaper in the city. My father could have left at any point before his arrest in 2020. He chose to stay because he felt a responsibility to stand with his journalists and his city. He chose to stay because, despite the litany of legal charges the government has thrown at him, he knew that it is the duty of those who have tasted freedom to stand up for it."

The forced closure of Apple Daily, and the ongoing unlawful detention of Mr Lai – one of Hong Kong’s most successful businessmen – has sent a chilling warning to all wanting to do business in Hong Kong. International media organisations are closing their Hong Kong bureaus. States, including the US, are implementing new business advisories about the risk of investing in Hong Kong. Business press have repeatedly warned of capital flight from Hong Kong to Singapore and a movement away from Hong Kong being used as a seat for commercial arbitration because confidence in the rule of law in Hong Kong, and its previously prized legal system, has been fundamentally undermined. Cases like Jimmy Lai’s should act as a red flag to those doing business in an environment controlled by the national security laws with broad powers to punish critics and dissenters.

Jimmy Lai’s international legal team is led by Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC. The team also includes well-known Australian barrister Jennifer Robinson, who also represents Julian Assange. Experts in media law and freedom, Gallagher and Robinson are travelling with Sebastien, appearing at public events and meeting with Australian politicians and community leaders. They will be joined in their advocacy by well-known Australian journalist and press freedom advocate, Peter Greste (Professor of Journalism at Macquarie University and Executive Director for the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom), who was unlawfully detained in Egypt in relation to his work for Al Jazeera.

Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC says:
“Jimmy Lai’s case is one of the worst examples worldwide of ‘lawfare’: repressive governments using the law against journalists. Jimmy Lai has been targeted because he is a journalist, a media owner, and a pro-democracy campaigner – because he stands up to the authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong. Targeting Mr Lai is also designed to send a chilling message to all media and journalists speaking out about democracy and human rights in Hong Kong – keep silent, or you’ll be next.”

“We ask the Australian government to call for Jimmy Lai’s immediate release, and to join with UK, US and European allies in taking robust, concrete action to ensure he is freed, before it’s too late.”

SEBASTIEN LAI
Sebastien Lai is Jimmy Lai’s son. Jimmy Lai is a renowned pro-democracy campaigner, media entrepreneur and writer, who founded Next Digital and Apple Daily, the popular independent Chinese language newspaper in Hong Kong which was forcibly shut down by the Hong Kong authorities in 2021. Jimmy Lai has been imprisoned in Hong Kong since December 2020, and now awaits trial which could lead to him spending the rest of his life behind bars. 

Sebastien is leading the international #FreeJimmyLai campaign to secure his father’s release.

In December 2021 Sebastien accepted the award of the 2021 WAN-IFRA Golden Pen of Freedom on behalf of his father and the newsroom staff of Apple Daily Hong Kong. On receiving the award he said there will be “less and less people shining light in these dark corners” given Apple Daily’s shutdown and the ongoing crackdown on journalism in the region.

CAOILFHIONN GALLAGHER KC
Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC is a human rights lawyer. Over the past 25 years she has acted in many of the leading cases in the UK and before the European Court of Human Rights on a wide range of human rights issues, including acting for the bereaved families of the Hillsborough Disaster and the 7/7 London Bombings, for victims and survivors of abuse, in cases which overturned the previous total ban on access to abortion in Northern Ireland, and in a series of cases which have changed the law on the rights of children in custody.

Caoilfhionn's international work includes acting in many cases involving arbitrary detention: she has secured the freedom of imprisoned journalists, peaceful protestors, cartoonists and human rights defenders in countries worldwide. She is an expert in journalists' safety, and she leads the international legal teams for Hong Kong publisher and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai; for the bereaved family of assassinated Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia; and for Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize winning journalist in the Philippines.

Caoilfhionn is also a Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission; Ireland’s Special Rapporteur on Child Protection; and an Adjunct Full Professor at University College Dublin. In 2017 she was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts for her “outstanding commitment to enabling the Human Rights Act’s protections” for devising and founding a mass advertising campaign to tell positive human rights stories. In January 2024 she was awarded the President of Ireland’s Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad.

JENNIFER ROBINSON
Jennifer Robinson is an award-winning barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London and a member of the international legal team for Jimmy Lai. She has acted in key human rights and media freedom cases in domestic and international courts. Her work has involved securing the freedom of arbitrarily detained journalists, protesters, human rights defenders and Australian citizens detained abroad in countries around the world. She advises media organisations and journalists on media freedom and journalist safety, with clients including the BBC World Service; the International Federation of Journalists and bereaved families of Palestinian journalists, including Shireen Abu Akleh; the bereaved family of assassinated Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia; and Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

Jen sits on the boards of the Grata Fund, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights and the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at Oxford University. In 2022, she co-authored How Many More Women? Exposing how the law silences women, published by Allen & Unwin.

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