Sebastien Lai, leader of the international #FreeJimmyLai campaign and son of imprisoned pro-democracy newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai, addressed the 17th Annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy on February 18th, 2025.
Full Prepared Remarks:
Chinese New Year’s was just a few weeks ago. Since I was young, every year my family would gather at my father’s house. And we would receive red pockets, eat radish cakes and around the table we would joke about who gained the most weight during this holiday season.
Instead, my father spent New Year’s in a tiny cell in a maximum security prison in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong authorities have kept him in solitary confinement for over 4 years now as a cruel reminder of the cost of standing up for the freedoms in this new Hong Kong. His alleged crime? Running the only newspaper in the city that dared to criticise Beijing.
I feel like some background is in order. My father was born Lai Zhi Ying in Guangdong province of China in the 40s. He escaped the famine in Communist China as a stowaway to Hong Kong when he was 12. He got a job in a glove factory as soon as he arrived. He always said it was one of the greatest days of his life, because in Hong Kong he knew that he had a future. After his first shift the foreman saw his condition and gave him a bit of money to go to the food market for a warm meal. As he tells it, he had never seen so much food in his life. He broke down crying.
In the next few years he went from a factory worker to eventually owning his own factory.
And then in his late 30s he founded a clothing brand named Giordano. He jokes that at that time he was naive enough to think that giving it an Italian name would make it sound sophisticated. The company promised simple good quality clothes at an affordable price. It took off, becoming one of the largest and the fastest growing clothing brands in Asia, making a fortune for my father in the process. He had become a Hong Kong success story. Many in the city now wore the clothes that he made.
Now he wasn’t very political until 1989. My father along with many people in Hong Kong was very hopeful that the student-led protests across China would bring greater freedoms. As you all know that wasn’t to be, on June 4th 1984 [1989] in Tiananmen Square, when the Chinese Communist Party murdered peaceful protesters. Hong Kong was especially shocked by their brutality, since the handover from British to Chinese rule was just a few years away.
My father, always a man of action, knew that he had to do all that he could to defend the freedoms that gave him so much. Other newspapers started self-censoring in preparation for the handover. So my father started a newspaper that wasn’t afraid to criticise those in power, one that had a pro-democracy stance. I still remember many of his competitors making fun of him at first. I mean, what would a ex-child refugee with a 5th grade education know about running a newspaper, they would say. But in his hard charging and unafraid style, he launched the Apple Daily and within a few years it became the largest newspaper in Hong Kong. His competitors were laughing no more. And more importantly Hong Kong now had a pro democracy voice available at every newsstand everyday.
But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. I still remember as a kid our house being firebombed on multiple occasions. He had an assassination plot against him. People followed him around for years harassing him. After he published an article calling the then premier of China, Li Pang, the butcher of Beijing a “Son of a Bitch” he was given a choice. Either bend the knee or sell Giordano. He chose the latter.
Dad held strong and held steady, believing that information is choice and choice is freedom, so through his newspaper he and his journalists were furthering the freedoms of Hong Kong. He found purpose and joy in his work.
In 2019, pro-democracy protests broke out in Hong Kong. At one point 2 million people marched on the streets demanding greater freedom. Dad, now in his 70s, would go out every single day to march. Hope was once again in the air of Hong Kong. Then came the national security law. The Hong Kong government had decided to go from rule of law to rule by law. Gone was free speech, the freedom to protest and the free press. My father knew that he was one of the main targets of this law and despite the urging of many people he refused to leave. 6 decades after landing on the shore of this island in pursuit of freedom, he decided to stay and stand with his fellow protesters and journalists. Acting as a lightning rod for the coming persecution if he must.
Then, on a fateful day in 2020, my father was arrested. The government sent 200 police officers to raid the Apple Daily offices, and when Apple Daily refused to close, they sent another 500 police officers, freezing its bank accounts and forcing its closure.
My father has been in jail ever since, facing a slew of false charges for peaceful campaigning. He was known in the local media for being chubby. In fact if you give “Jimmy Lai” a quick google after this, you will see what I mean. You will also see him smiling in most of these pictures. It’s an almost childish smile of a man who lived through cruelty and hard times without it dintting his positive outlook on humanity.
But now he looks gaunt. Solitary confinement in a little concrete cell that goes up to 40 degrees in the summer will do that to a man. But that smile of hope is still there, beaming in an otherwise dark courtroom where the government have decided to destroy Hong Kong’s legal system in order to incriminate a city’s yearning for freedom.
My father turns 78 this year. With his current national security law trial, that is ongoing at this moment, he stands to face a maximum sentence of life in prison, though just 5 years will probably have the same effect given his age and health. Unless something changes, my father will die in prison. In a recent court hearing, after a heated exchange with the government-appointed national security judges shouting at him, my father replied “In the end of the day the truth will come out in the kingdom of God, and that is good enough for me.” But he needn’t wait that long. I ask that you join my call to free Jimmy Lai and champion him for all he’s given in the hope of freedom.
Thank you.
17th Annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, U.N. Opening, Monday, February 17, 2025
Key Quotes:
“My father always a man of action… he decided to start his own pro-democracy newspaper that wasn’t afraid to criticise those in power. The Apple Daily quickly became the largest newspaper in Hong Kong.”
“I still remember as a kid our house being firebombed on multiple occasions, [my father] had an assassination plot against him, people followed him around for years harassing him.”
“When Hong Kong announced a new national security law, limiting free speech and freedom of the press, my father knew that he was one of the main targets but he refused to leave. Six decades after landing on the shore of this island in pursuit of freedom, he decided to stay and stand with his fellow protesters.”
“I ask that you join my call to free Jimmy Lai and champion him for all he’s given in the hope of freedom.”
