'Now is Jimmy Lai’s hour of need', Benedict Rogers
The world cannot let a brave, peaceful Catholic defender of human dignity spend the rest of his life behind bars
On my wall hangs an illustration of the Crucifixion, drawn by Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong’s most prominent lay Catholic and one of Asia’s most courageous pro-democracy campaigners, from his prison cell.
It was given to me a few years ago, and every morning I look at it when I wake up and pray for him.
Jimmy Lai is my friend — and now he faces 20 years in jail. Given that he is 78 years old and in failing health, this amounts to a life sentence and ultimately a death sentence.
Without urgent, robust, coordinated, and effective international pressure to seek his release, Lai will die in prison.
Lai, a hugely successful businessman and media entrepreneur, has already spent more than five years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, on multiple bogus charges. He has been held in a cell deliberately deprived of natural light, endured extreme heat, and is permitted less than an hour a day for exercise in a confined space.
A diabetic with a heart condition, he has suffered dramatic weight loss, but has been refused independent medical care of his choice. At the start of his trial, he was denied his choice of legal counsel and has been refused the right to receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion.
Now he faces the rest of his life behind bars. For what?
On Dec. 15, after a two-year sham trial, Lai was convicted by judges handpicked by the regime of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, under the draconian National Security Law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing in 2020, and conspiracy to publish seditious materials.
His conversations with foreign politicians, journalists, and activists such as myself were cited as evidence by the prosecution. I was referenced 95 times in the judgment, for our occasional meetings in London, Taipei, and New York, and our regular communications.
But what was the content of our conversations? The situation in Hong Kong, the values of human rights and democracy, our families, our travels, music, cuisine, art, literature, philosophy, and our shared Catholic faith.
Are such topics really such a threat to Hong Kong’s national security?
Lai’s “crimes” are nothing more than the crimes of journalism, of daring to think differently from the Chinese Communist Party, and being bold and brave enough to speak his mind. His imprisonment is a further assault on freedom of conscience and freedom of expression, a further dismantling of what little may have been left of Hong Kong’s basic freedoms, and a further undermining of the rule of law in Hong Kong.
It is important to remember that while Lai received the harshest sentence, eight other co-defendants were jailed alongside him. These include former Apple Daily editor Ryan Law, executive editor Lam Man-chung, and editorial writer Fung Wai-kong, all of whom received ten-year sentences; former editorial writer Yeung Ching-kee, sentenced to seven years and three months; former associate publisher Chan Pui-man, jailed for seven years; and former publisher and chief executive Cheung Kim-hung, who was sentenced to six years and nine months. Activists Andy Li and Wayland Chan were also sentenced to seven years and three months and six years and three months, respectively.
World leaders have condemned the sentence. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, deplored it, saying that Lai had been jailed “for exercising rights protected under international law” and, as such, “this verdict needs to be promptly quashed as incompatible with international law.”
Britain’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper made similar remarks, pointing to “a politically motivated prosecution.” She urged the Hong Kong authorities to “end his appalling ordeal and release him on humanitarian grounds.”
And US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the sentence “unjust and tragic,” illustrating to the world the “extraordinary lengths” to which Beijing will go “to silence those who advocate fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong”.
Other prominent figures in the United States, Canada, Australia, across Europe, Japan, Taiwan, and beyond spoke out, including a group of 86 politicians from 31 countries in the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC).
Yet so far, one voice among the international community is silent: that of the pope and the Vatican.
Pope Leo XIV, who met Lai’s wife and daughter last year, should now speak out at the earliest opportunity. He should pray publicly for Lai when he prays the Angelus from his window overlooking St Peter’s Square this coming Sunday. As a pontiff who has repeatedly spoken strongly for press freedom and religious freedom, Leo should call for Lai’s release.
Lai’s journey to wealth, faith, and prison is an extraordinary one, told beautifully in a powerful documentary, The Hong Konger.
Born in mainland China, Lai fled the famine caused by Chairman Mao Zedong’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ in about 1959. He was just 12 years old and escaped as a stowaway on a boat to Hong Kong. He worked his way up from child laborer in a garment factory to billionaire, founding a successful clothing retail chain known as Giordano, investing in hotels and real estate, and then moving into the publishing business.
He founded Next magazine and then the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper in response to the 1989 Tiananmen massacre of pro-democracy protesters in China and in preparation for the handover of Hong Kong to Beijing’s dictatorship.
Within days of the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, Mr Lai was baptized as a Catholic by Hong Kong’s courageous Cardinal Joseph Zen. He found his Catholic faith through his devoted wife Teresa, and his friend and godfather William McGurn, a former White House speech writer and Wall Street Journal editorial writer.
Over the last five years in jail, Lai has nurtured his faith, spending his days in solitary confinement praying, reading, and drawing images like the one that now hangs on my wall.
Among the texts that have sustained him, according to his daughter Claire, are St Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, the works of St John Henry Newman, particularly An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, and St Augustine’s writings. He is also known to have enjoyed Peter Seewald’s biographies of Pope Benedict XIV and George Weigel’s books on Pope St John Paul II.
Given his devout faith and his courageous struggle for the values of freedom and human rights, the Church has a duty to pray for him and call out the injustice he is enduring.
Catholics, other Christians of all traditions, and people of goodwill of all faiths and none around Asia and the world should cry out for this brave man who shone a light against the darkness of tyranny and repression.
Churches around Asia and the world should hold Masses in his honor, say prayers, and hold vigils for his health, family, and freedom.
The question for the authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong is, do they really want Lai to die in jail, a martyr for freedom?
And for the international community, including the Vatican, does it really want the death of a brave, peaceful Catholic defender of human dignity on its conscience?
If not, then the international community must coordinate pressure on Beijing to release Lai on humanitarian grounds — and the pope could lead the way.
Now that the regime has made an example of Lai, they have nothing to lose and much to gain by releasing him and allowing him to leave Hong Kong and live out his final years with his family.
Jimmy Lai could have left Hong Kong at any point before his arrest in 2020. He has a British passport, owns properties in London, Taipei, and Paris, and hotels in Canada and beyond, and has plenty of friends in the United States. He could have settled in any of these locations and enjoyed a comfortable retirement in peace.
But he chose to stay with his people in their hour of need, knowing how severe the consequences could be. Now it is his hour of need — we must stand with him and demand his release.
This article was published in UCA News on 11 February 2026.
Photo: Iris Tong, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons