China-Hong Kong: Jimmy Lai’s son calls for his father’s release at the UN Human Rights Council
Credit: UNWebTV
18 June 2025: Today, Jimmy Lai’s son, Sebastien Lai, addressed the 59th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) as a representative of PEN International during an Interactive Dialogue with Irene Khan, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression.
In his submitted statement, Sebastien highlighted Hong Kong’s rapidly deteriorating freedom of expression environment and called on the Hong Kong authorities to release his imprisoned father, a writer and media publisher who has been charged under Hong Kong’s deeply repressive National Security Law (NSL), which can result in a life sentence if convicted.
PEN International joins Sebastien in calling on the Hong Kong authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Jimmy Lai and to drop all charges against him. The organisation also calls on the Hong Kong and Chinese government to uphold their international human rights obligations, ensuring the right to freedom of expression for all.
PEN International and PEN Centres worldwide have continuously campaigned for Jimmy Lai’s release since his initial detention, including several high-level interventions at the United Nations Human Rights Council. On 21 September 2024, Jimmy Lai was named as recipient of PEN Canada’s One Humanity Award.
A transcript of Sebastien Lai’s full statement submitted to the HRC is available below:
International PEN thanks the Special Rapporteur for her latest report on freedom of expression in the context of elections. Free speech is the lifeblood of democracy.
A free and independent press is an essential element of that right, and the journalists, writers and publishers who do their work without fear nor favour are the core of an independent press.
In recent years there has been an escalation in the detention, harassment, and persecution of journalists and writers for their reporting on local, national or international events, including on elections.
Hong Kong SAR, once my home and a bastion of rights and freedoms in the Asia Pacific, is now emblematic of this trend.
Independent newspapers, like Apple Daily, that fearlessly sought out and reported on the truth, exposed corruption and abuse of power, have been shut down. Journalists have been prosecuted for sedition, for writing and publishing articles expressing opinions critical of the Chinese Communist Party. My father is one of the people being prosecuted.
My name is Sebastien Lai, and my father, Jimmy Lai founded Apple Daily. He is a publisher, writer and journalist, who has been imprisoned in Hong Kong, in solitary confinement, for 4.5 years. His latest trial under the draconian National Security Law makes clear that he is on trial because of his peaceful expression of opinion and for supporting democratic values. Now 77, he faces the rest of his life in prison for providing an essential service to the people of Hong Kong and for standing up for democracy.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found he is arbitrarily detained, that he has been targeted for exercising his right to freedom of expression, that the trials against him have been unfair.
But its not just my father. Many others who have sought to peacefully express their opinion, by peaceful demonstration, on social media, in the media, have been arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned in Hong Kong.
International PEN calls on Hong Kong to respect and protect those who peacefully protest and advocate for democracy and human rights, and to release my father, Jimmy Lai.
We urge the Special Rapporteur and the Council to raise Jimmy Lai’s case and these vital issues with the Hong Kong and Chinese authorities.
Additional information:
Jimmy Lai has been held in solitary confinement since December 2020, following his initial brief detention in August 2020 on multiple charges for his journalism and pro-democracy activism. Lai’s national security trial commenced on 18 December 2023. He faces two charges under the NSL and a further charge of conspiring to publish ‘seditious’ materials under Hong Kong’s colonial-era sedition law. On 26 September 2024, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found Lai’s ongoing detention to be arbitrary and called for his immediate release. The national security trial is currently adjourned, with closing arguments scheduled to take place on 14 August 2025.
To learn more about Jimmy Lai’s unjust imprisonment, please refer to the PEN International Case List.
Note to editors:
For further information please contact Ross Holder, Head of Asia/ Pacific Region at PEN International. Email: [email protected]
For media queries, please contact Sabrina Tucci, Communications and Campaigns Manager at PEN International, [email protected]