1,000 days behind bars: Unless Britain steps up, Jimmy Lai – my friend – could die in prison

The vengeful, cruel regime in Beijing is determined to keep one of Hong Kong’s most internationally respected advocates of freedom behind bars. So why is Britain silent about the appalling and unjust fate of a British citizen, asks Benedict Rogers

A rare glimpse of Jimmy Lai as he is escorted through the Stanley prison in Hong Kong, 28 July 2023 (AP)

Jimmy Lai, a 75-year-old entrepreneur, media proprietor and pro-democracy campaigner, has been in jail in Hong Kong for exactly 1,000 days. Yet he still has his most serious trial, under Hong Kong’s draconian National Security Law, to come. If convicted, he could face a life sentence. Unless something changes, Lai – my friend – could die in prison.

Lai is a British citizen, but the British government has still not called for his release. And while the Foreign Office minister for the Indo-Pacific, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, has met Lai’s son Sebastien three times, the prime minister and the foreign secretary have yet to agree to his request for a meeting.

When he visited Beijing last month, James Cleverly pointedly told the press he had explicitly raised Lai’s case. He also raised the case at the United Nations Human Rights Council in June. The government’s latest six-monthly report on Hong Kong cites the case. This is some welcome progress, given that for two years from the time of Lai’s arrest, when Cleverly’s predecessor Dominic Raab issued a statement, until the end of last year, the British government was silent. But even now, their response is muted, stopping short of demanding his freedom and limited simply to demanding consular access.