(LifeSiteNews) — Human rights activist Reggie Littlejohn wrote an open letter to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and U.S. President Donald Trump, calling on them to “take urgent action to free Jimmy Lai.”
Littlejohn, the founder and president of Anti-Globalist International, highlighted a petition signed by citizens from over 30 countries “calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Jimmy Lai,” the 78-year-old Catholic founder of the anti-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Apple Daily newspaper.
Lai, a British national, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a Hong Kong court after being convicted in December of foreign collusion and “seditious publication.”
Littlejohn stressed in her letter that Lai’s health “is in rapid decline” after more than five years in solitary confinement with reportedly inadequate treatment for heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes, and with little natural light.
“The risk to his life is immediate. Any further delay may amount to a death sentence,” Littlejohn warned.
She acknowledged that while Trump said he would bring up Lai’s release with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, the lack of response from Beijing shows that stronger action needs to be taken.
“Prime Minister Starmer, as the leader of Jimmy Lai’s country of citizenship, your government has both a moral obligation and a sovereign responsibility to act decisively,” Littlejohn said.
“We urge you both to escalate this matter to the highest diplomatic priority,” the human rights activist wrote. This means, she continued, that Lai’s continued imprisonment should carry concrete consequences “in bilateral and multilateral engagements with the Chinese government.”
“Silence or incrementalism at this stage risks signaling tolerance for grave human rights abuses,” Littlejohn said. The imprisonment of Lai is bigger than one man’s imprisonment, she stressed. It is a reflection of the resolve of the international community “to defend fundamental freedoms from the predations of the Chinese Communist Party.”
“We urge you to act with urgency and resolve to secure his release while there is still time,” Littlejohn exhorted.
Lai’s tabloid, Apple Daily, founded in 1995, became one of the leading newspapers in Hong Kong but closed its doors in June 2021 when the offices were raided by CCP security personnel and Lai was arrested.
His arrest and subsequent jail sentence caused outrage in the international sphere, with the U.S. State Department issuing a 2022 statement deploring the Chinese National Security Law’s “systematic dismantling of Hong Kong’s autonomy” and calling for a restoration of “respect for press freedom in Hong Kong, where a once-vibrant independent media environment has all but disappeared.”
As Littlejohn noted in her petition, human rights groups as well as 50 United States senators have characterized the charges against Lai as politically motivated.
“These charges are designed to punish Jimmy Lai for his passionate, effective and self-sacrificial advocacy for free speech and democracy, and to intimidate others from taking a similar stand,” the petition states.
“By shining a light on the human rights atrocities of the Chinese Communist Party, Jimmy Lai has become a beacon of hope for the people of Hong Kong and the world. He has sacrificed his own personal freedom for that of his beloved Hong Kong. He is a man of heroic virtue and towering moral excellence. The CCP is doing everything it can to extinguish the man and snuff out the hope. We must not allow this to happen.”