UK – Sky News, Sept. 11, 2025
Jimmy Lai is awaiting a verdict in his national security trial in Hong Kong, five years after he was arrested for taking part in pro-democracy protests.
MPs from around the world are urging their heads of state to follow Donald Trump’s call for jailed Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s release as he awaits a verdict.
Parliamentarians from 16 countries, ranging from the UK and Canada to Zambia and Paraguay, have written to their prime ministers and presidents in a coordinated global effort to get them to “form a united coalition” in support of Mr Lai.
The 77-year-old Apple Daily newspaper founder, who is a British citizen with no other passport, has been in prison in Hong Kong since December 2020 and is awaiting the final verdict in his trial, with no date set. It could come any day now.
He is accused of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and sedition under the national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing following pro-democracy protests he was involved with in 2019.
In August, the US president renewed his promise to “save” Mr Lai, saying he is “going to do everything” he can to get him freed, after initially pledging to “100% get him out” weeks before the US election last November.
Now, parliamentarians, including British MPs and Lords, who are members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), are calling on their leaders to follow suit.
