Activists and Lawmakers Worldwide Launch Campaign for Jailed Hong Kong Newspaper Owner Jimmy Lai

An international alliance of human rights activists and parliamentarians will today launch a campaign in solidarity with imprisoned Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai.

Politicians from the UK, France, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada and other countries worldwide will join prominent rights defenders in posting a “Letter to Lai,” a short video message expressing support for Jimmy Lai and the people of Hong Kong.

Organized by the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, the campaign will coincide with a takeover of the human rights organization’s social media accountsby journalists from Mr. Lai’s forcibly closed pro-democracy paper, Apple Daily, who will be provided a platform to post articles outlawed under Beijing’s national security law.

“At the Geneva Summit we work with human rights activists who are former political prisoners. If there is one thought they all share while imprisoned, it’s the fear of being forgotten. With this campaign we therefore want to show Mr. Lai that the world remembers his name,” said Dylan Rogers, a Summit spokesperson. The “Letters to Lai” will appear throughout the day on the Geneva Summit’s social media, with concerned citizens asked to “post” their own online.

The campaign comes as China tightens its grip over the semi-autonomous territory, with an opaque new national security law threatening to abolish the basic freedoms guaranteed by Beijing in 1984.
Lai, who turns 73 today, was one of the most prominent supporters of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. He was first detained in August 2020 and recently pleaded “not guilty” to a charge of inciting others to take part in an unauthorized assembly.

Apple Daily was shut down under the national security law in June 2021. Hongkongers queued for hours to buy its final edition, which sold a record million copies.