Britain cannot stand idly by as China wages the autocracies' war on journalism

Journalism is not a crime, yet too often it is a dangerous occupation. Today is World Press Freedom Day, but in too many parts of the world press freedom is non-existent or severely threatened. 

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 363 journalists are in jail today, and this year alone at least nine have been killed and 65 gone missing. In the past thirty years, a minimum of 2,196 journalists have been killed. Reporters Without Borders, in their 2023 Press Freedom Index released today, indicate that the environment for journalism is “bad” in seven out of ten countries.

Many regimes deny press freedom and threaten journalists. In Myanmar all independent media has been shut down since the coup two years ago, and 42 journalists are in prison. Vladimir Putin has jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gerhkovich, the first American journalist to be detained in Russia since the Cold War. But among the worst is China, only outranked by North Korea in Reporters Without Borders’ index.

Citizen journalist Zhang Zhan is one of several individuals jailed for reporting on the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, Dong Yuyu is in jail for the ‘crime’ of meeting a Japanese diplomat, and Taiwanese publisher and radio broadcaster Li Yanhe has been arrested in China. Tibet is one of the most closed countries in the world, with the Dalai Lama – whom I met recently in Dharamsala – subjected to a relentless campaign of lies by Beijing and access for foreign reporters almost completely denied. There are more foreign journalists in North Korea than in Tibet.

But nowhere has the crackdown on media freedom been more rapid, dramatic and comprehensive as Hong Kong. For the first five years after the handover of Hong Kong to China, I worked in the city as a journalist. At the time, Hong Kong’s media was vibrant, noisy, bold and free. It remained so until three years ago. But since the imposition by Beijing of a draconian national security law in July 2020, Hong Kong’s independent media has been strangled with alarming speed. Last year Hong Kong fell to 148^th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ index, from 18^th place twenty years ago.

The most symbolic and severe example of this crackdown is the forced closure of Apple Daily, the largest mass circulation Chinese language pro-democracy newspaper, and the imprisonment of its founder Jimmy Lai. 

In June 2021, over 300 police officers raided the newspaper’s newsroom and arrested its editor and five other executives, and the Hong Kong government froze the publishers’ assets, effectively choking the newspaper to death financially. Even though it had enough funds to survive at least another 18 months, with its bank accounts frozen it was unable to pay staff, printers and electricity bills. Earlier this year, the Hong Kong government delisted Mr Lai’s company, Next Digital, from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Mr Lai, now aged 75, was arrested the year before his newspaper was shut down and has spent the past two-and-a-half years behind bars on multiple trumped-up charges. Among his “crimes” are lighting a candle and saying a prayer at a vigil to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre, participating in peaceful protests in 2019 and, most absurdly, a sentence of five years and nine months for using an office in the Apple Daily building for his personal use. One would have thought a newspaper proprietor could use an office in his own publication’s building, but even if it was – as the government alleged – a lease violation, it should have been a civil dispute resulting in a fine, not a criminal charge resulting in a nearly six-year sentence. It is clear that Beijing’s quislings in Hong Kong want to keep Mr Lai locked up for as long as possible and tarnish his reputation with a false “fraud” charge.

And this is by no means the end of the persecution of Mr Lai. Later this year, his biggest trial will begin, on charges of violating the national security law. If convicted, he could face a minimum of ten years and potentially a life sentence. It is highly likely that he will die in jail.

Mr Lai has been denied his choice of lawyer, as British barrister Tim Owen KC was refused permission to represent him by the Hong Kong government. The head of his international legal team, Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, has received disgraceful death and rape threats. The likelihood of anything resembling a fair trial is slim, especially as the Hong Kong government boasts of a 100 per cent conviction rate in national security cases.

Mr Lai is a British citizen, as is his son Sebastien, yet the British government’s efforts to help him have been paltry. Sebastien has made repeated requests to meet the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, to no avail. Indeed, for two years the government said nothing about the case. James Cleverly did mention Mr Lai’s plight at the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year, and Foreign Office Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan has met Sebastien twice, which is progress, but why will Rishi Sunak not speak out publicly?

Last week the All Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong published a detailed report on the crackdown on media freedom in Hong Kong, and called on the government to make Mr Lai’s case “a political priority”. World Press Freedom Day provides the perfect opportunity for the Prime Minister to respond positively to that call.

So too does the Coronation on Saturday. In a blatant insult to the King, this country and Hong Kongers, China is sending vice-president Han Zheng, the architect of the crackdown on Hong Kong. This is a man who ought to be sanctioned, not welcomed to Westminster Abbey. However, if his visit does go ahead Rishi Sunak and James Cleverly should raise, publicly and pointedly, the case of Mr Lai and the assault on Hong Kong’s press with him and leave him in no doubt that the British government will speak up for British citizens. Failure to do so will simply embolden the Chinese Communist Party’s brutal repression and leave Mr Lai and other journalists in jail in Hong Kong and China even more vulnerable.

Some in government may believe that speaking out for Mr Lai could make things worse. In some cases that can be a valid concern, but Mr Lai has already served prison sentences for peaceful protest, and now faces the rest of his life in prison, following a wholly unfair trial. His son has made it clear he wants the British government’s support. At the very least, Rishi Sunak and James Cleverly should meet Sebastien at the earliest opportunity, so they can hear first-hand about his father’s case and then act accordingly. 

On World Press Freedom Day, Britain must defend this basic human right and its citizens jailed for exercising it.

Benedict Rogers is co-founder and Chief Executive of Hong Kong Watch and author of “The China Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the Chinese Communist Party’s Tyranny” (Optimum Publishing International, 2022).