People gather in front of the Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles to protest the conviction of media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai in February.Apu Gomes/Getty Images
Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai will not appeal a 20-year prison sentence handed down last month, his legal team said Friday.
In December, Mr. Lai, a longtime pro-democracy activist and critic of Beijing, was found guilty of sedition and colluding with foreign forces. His multi-year trial attracted immense international media attention and was criticized by Western governments, press freedom organizations and human rights groups.
In handing down their verdict, a panel of three judges handpicked by Hong Kong leader John Lee to oversee sensitive national security cases said there was “indisputable evidence” he had conspired with foreign actors to undermine the Chinese and Hong Kong governments, based on a lifelong “resentment and hatred” of the Communist regime in Beijing.
A panel of United Nations human rights experts said the prosecution of Mr. Lai, publisher of the now defunct Apple Daily newspaper, was a “direct assault on freedom of expression and media freedom and is deliberately aimed at deepening the chilling effect on civil society” in Hong Kong.
The G7, which includes Canada, also condemned the verdict, which it said was emblematic of “deteriorating rights, freedoms and autonomy in Hong Kong,” and called for Mr. Lai’s immediate release.
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Since his arrest in 2020, Mr. Lai’s family and supporters have repeatedly raised concerns about the 78-year-old’s health, and his lawyers have said he suffers from diabetes and heart problems. The two-decade sentence handed to him in February makes it all but certain he will die behind bars unless he is released on compassionate grounds.
Mr. Lai’s family, led by his son, Sebastian Lai, have spent years setting the stage to lobby for just that, building up connections in Western capitals, particularly in the U.S., Canada and Britain. During his father’s trial, the younger Mr. Lai said he fully expected him to be found guilty, and would focus on ways to secure his release post-conviction.
In an e-mail to The Globe, Mr. Lai’s Hong Kong barrister Robert Pang said the tycoon’s legal team had received “clear and definitive instructions not to lodge an appeal against conviction or sentence.”
A representative for Mr. Lai’s London-based international lawyers, who were not involved in the trial but have led international lobbying efforts, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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How willing the Hong Kong or Chinese governments would be to consider compassionate release for Mr. Lai is unclear. After the verdict, China’s Office for Safeguarding National Security described him as the “ringleader of the anti-China and pro-chaos movement” of 2019 and “mastermind” of an attempted “colour revolution” against the Chinese government.
“The people of China, including compatriots in Hong Kong, are filled with righteous indignation and strongly demand that he be severely punished according to the law,” it said in a statement.
Past cases do not provide an encouraging example: China faced massive international pressure to release Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo after he was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2017. While Mr. Liu was given “medical parole” weeks before his death, he passed away under close guard in a hospital with bars on the windows, becoming only the second Peace Prize laureate to die in custody, after German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky in 1938.
Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy former Hong Kong media tycoon and a fierce critic of Beijing, was sentenced to 20 years in prison Monday.
The Associated Press
Following a visit to Beijing in January, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faced criticism for failing to advocate more for Mr. Lai – a British citizen. In a statement last month, U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said Mr. Starmer had “raised Mr. Lai’s case directly with” Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
“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,” Ms. Cooper said.
Perhaps the one Western leader who may be able to influence Beijing’s decision is U.S. President Donald Trump, who heads to the Chinese capital later this month.
After the December verdict, Mr. Trump said he had spoken to Mr. Xi about Mr. Lai and “asked him to consider his release.”
“He’s an older man, and he’s not well. So I did put that request out. We’ll see what happens,” Mr. Trump said.