#Jimmy Lai

[jurakan]

This week, the international legal team for Jimmy Lai — the jailed newspaper publisher, pro-democracy campaigner, and devout Catholic — filed an urgent appeal with the UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture.  For those who need a refresher on the man and what he has been through, he was one of seven pro-democracy advocates arrested, convicted, and then cleared of organizing a demonstration following the 2019 bid by the Hong Kong government to pass legislation that would have allowed political detainees to be deported to mainland China to face trial. When his conviction was voided last year, he stayed in jail though.  Now he’s on trial for alleged national security crimes — “conspiracy to produce seditious publications and to collude with foreign powers.” Basically, he’s accused of publishing a newspaper which rightly called out the crackdown on basic civil liberties in Hong Kong for what it is — “the death knell” of the rule of law. Lai has been in jail since December of 2020, and the 76-year old is losing weight and visibly deteriorating.  For all of that time he has been in solitary confinement, often in his cell for 23 hours and 10 minutes a day.  He does not see the sun on a regular basis. He is diabetic, but denied access to specialist medical care. The place where he is being held has a long and established track record of subjecting prisoners in solitary confinement to bright 24-hour lighting, and extreme temperatures. If he is convicted following his current trial (just the most recent of several vexatious prosecutions against him over recent years) he faces life in prison. Lai’s UK based lawyers argue his conditions amount to torture, and they seem to me to have a self-evident case.  I would add to the list that the reason he has an international legal team at all is because the Hong Kong government has blocked him from appointing his own preferred (and very qualified) lawyer to act in his defense there. I would further add that he has repeatedly cited his Catholic faith as the force sustaining him during his imprisonment — which he has called the “pinnacle of his life” — and has been living his solitary confinement as a kind of monasticism.  Yet, I’ve been told by people close to his situation, as part of his jailing, while he has been allowed to receive occasional visits from priests, they have been banned from bringing him Communion — an act of pure vindictiveness by his jailers. Indeed, from what I have been told, he has been held without access to the sacrament at least since his most recent trial began last December. So, in Jimmy Lai, we have a journalist who has been jailed for advocating for democratic freedoms (enshrined in Hong Kong’s own law), denied legal due process, access to needed medical care, and even to the sacraments of his Catholic faith. His is, at this point, a one-man human rights abuse bingo card.  We will, of course, continue to report on his trial as it progresses, though I’m under no illusions that international pressure or appeals to the UN are likely to secure his release, or even his transition to a more humane regime of imprisonment, any time soon.  But it is important that his witness is marked, his suffering recorded, and his name remembered. Both for his own sake, and for the sake of all those being slowly ground under the wheel in Hong Kong, we cannot forget Jimmy Lai.

-Ed Condon, The Pillar, "Goldenmouth, remember his name, and no winning"

[panicinthestudio]

Further reading:

HKFP: Explainer: How, and why, the gov’t banned protest song ‘Glory to Hong Kong’, May 17, 2024

[radioshiga]

Jimmy Lai: "Queria dar liberdade às pessoas com informação"

Hong Kong, China, 21 de novembro de 2024, South China Morning Post – O fundador do extinto jornal pró-democracia de Hong Kong, Apple Daily, Jimmy Lai, declarou em tribunal que seu objetivo sempre foi proporcionar mais informações às pessoas para que pudessem desfrutar da liberdade. Ele fez essa afirmação durante seu julgamento por suposta colaboração com forças estrangeiras para comprometer a…

[conatic]

Le procès du magnat pro-démocratie Jimmy Lai s’est ouvert ce lundi à Hong Kong - rtbf.be

Source: RTBF.be

[humanrightsupdates]

In this December 12, 2020 photo, Jimmy Lai, who founded the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, is escorted by Correctional Services officers to a prison van before appearing in a court. © 2020 Kin Cheung/AP Photo

(New York) –The Hong Kong authorities should drop the baseless charges against Jimmy Lai, founder of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, and release him from prison, Human Rights Watch said today. Lai’s national security trial is scheduled to start on December 18, 2023, and is expected to last for 80 days.

Lai, 76, faces three “foreign collusion” charges under the draconian National Security Law, imposed by Beijing since June 2020, and a sedition charge, based on his tweets, interviews he hosted, and articles he published in Apple Daily. The National Security Law charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.

“Given the National Security Law’s 100 percent conviction rate and Beijing’s determination to crush the city’s pro-democracy movement, Lai’s future may depend on the international response to this farce,” said Maya Wang, acting China director at Human Rights Watch. “Concerned governments should press the authorities to drop the charges against Lai, which have contributed to seriously damaging press freedom in Hong Kong.”

[francesaledrose]

💛🧡❤️🩷💜💙🩵💚

[kindaorangey]

hey guys when you say the ark boys were born to be together can you include bliss lai in that as well? the ark boys and bliss lai if it's not too much trouble thanks guys

[ninjinistarsong]

Lister, bleeding out and dying in the ditch: this is gonna ruin the tour

Angel: what tour???

Lister, starting to cry: the world tour

[tubbytarchia]

For the ranchers a bit more shleep i just really like charakters comfy and nice:Dc /nf

Eepies. Jimmy woke up to really sore wings but its okay because Tango

[springedlock]

i was playing it with my younger sibling watching and this came out

[sunflowerim]

I think the truth is that everyone in the entire world is confused and nobody understands much of anything at all.

- more wise words by Angel Rahimi (I Was Born For This, Alice Oseman)

[normalpeoplethiings]

JIMMY AND ROWAN SINGING TOGETHER MAKES ME SO HAPPY

my boy lister is definitely doing the right thing by recording

[yourfavaschips]

saul goodman if you haven't done him already :-) thank you

i want to go the extra mile for him

[earthfluuke]

[archive-rat]

Did somebody say Big Dogs? Here’s a little sketch of the canine duo!