UK – Independent, Jan. 28, 2026
As the PM begins his diplomatic trip to China, Jimmy Lai remains wrongfully imprisoned. It’s time something was done to bring him home, says his son Sebastien Lai
Dear Prime Minister,
I write with a desperate plea for you to save my father’s life. My father, Jimmy Lai, is a British citizen who has done more to defend the values of freedom, justice and democracy than could ever be expected of anyone. He is 78, and his health is failing. My heart breaks to think of him alone in the concrete cell in which he has spent five long years. Please bring him home to his family before it is too late.
As you begin your historic visit to China, you have a unique opportunity. Do not waste it. This is not about negotiating a handful of business contracts or extracting a promise of investment. It is about liberating a British prisoner of conscience: a husband, father and grandfather. It is about proving yourself worthy of a place in the history books.
You have never met my father, but if he were with you now, he would tell you that silence in the face of injustice is a form of complicity. He would remind you that the measure of a man is his courage, and that the measure of a nation is its commitment to defending its people, wherever they are and whoever they are being persecuted by.
My father has suffered enough: wrongly arrested and imprisoned, tried on trumped-up charges based on evidence apparently obtained through torture, and convicted of nothing more than acts of journalism and political campaigning. He is being viciously persecuted by the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities because he dared to speak truth to power.
