Activists and supporters of publisher Jimmy Lai gather for his national security trial in Taipei, Taiwan, on Aug. 24.ChiangYing-ying/The Associated Press
Lawyers acting for jailed Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai have launched an urgent appeal to experts at the United Nations, warning that his life is at serious and immediate risk in detention.
Mr. Lai’s international legal team has presented research to UN rapporteurs showing that some other elderly patients with diabetes have died in custody in Hong Kong, after receiving inadequate medical attention.
The 77-year-old publisher, who has been held in solitary confinement for more than 4½ years, faces the possibility of life imprisonment. His long-delayed trial wound up last month in Hong Kong and he is awaiting a verdict.
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Apple Daily, the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper founded by Mr. Lai in 1995, was the largest independent Chinese-language media outlet in the region.
He and six senior staff members were arrested in 2020 and charged with “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces” under the Beijing-imposed national-security law and under a sedition law. Until the sedition charge was resurrected five years ago, it had not been used since the 1960s, when Hong Kong was still under British rule.
The six staff members pleaded guilty to the collusion charge after being detained for between 488 and 521 days. But Mr. Lai pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Lai is one of the longest-held prisoners under the security law established five years ago. Human-rights groups, including Amnesty International, have said that he has been targeted for his journalistic work.
His lawyers have raised grave concerns not just about the basis for the charges he faces, but about the effect of his prison conditions on his health.
In its appeal to UN experts, Mr. Lai’s international legal team said there had been a significant number of deaths of older and diabetic prisoners in Hong Kong, alleging a failure to observe their deteriorating health and to transfer them to hospital in time for life-saving treatment.
“The evidence is deeply disturbing,” said Mr. Lai’s international counsel Caoilfhionn Gallagher.
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The appeal said that between 2014 and 2025, 50 per cent of Hong Kong prisoners who died of “natural causes” were older prisoners and 13 per cent were diabetic. It added that 36 per cent of prisoners who died of natural causes were transferred to hospital less than 24 hours before being pronounced dead.
The majority of diabetic prisoners were transferred to hospital fewer than three days before their deaths, the appeal said.
The appeal also said: “It is chilling to note that twelve prisoners who died during the period 2014-2025 closely match Mr. Lai’s profile, being older, male diabetic prisoners. The most recent death of a diabetic prisoner was just last month, on 28th June 2025, of a man aged 74.”
The lawyers filed the appeal with the special rapporteur on torture, Alice Edwards; the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Morris Tidball-Binz; and the special rapporteur on the right to health, Tlaleng Mofokeng.
Last year, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled that Mr. Lai is unlawfully and arbitrarily detained, and called for his immediate release. Five UN special rapporteurs have previously issued a statement calling for Mr. Lai’s release.
Mr. Lai’s son Sebastien Lai said in a statement that he feared for his father’s life, saying he “has been in solitary confinement for almost five years.”
“He is showing extraordinary courage in standing up for the values of press freedom and democracy in the face of unspeakable abuses of his human rights.”
Last month, ahead of closing arguments in Mr. Lai’s trial, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would do what he could to save him.
In a Fox radio interview, Mr. Trump said he had raised Mr. Lai’s case with the Chinese government.
“I’ve already brought it up and I am going to do everything I can to save him. I’m going to do everything,” the President said. “His name has already entered the circle of things that we’re talking about and we’ll see what we can do.”
Brandon Silver, director of policy and projects at Canada’s Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, said that “Jimmy Lai’s life is on the line.”
“Canada must urgently join our allies in seeking his humanitarian release,” he said. “What we do will signal to our allies, our adversaries, and our citizens whether our government has the resolve to defend freedom and the rule of law.”