Index on Censorship weekly news round-up
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Friday, 28 April 2023
** Why we won't stop talking about Jimmy Lai
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Jimmy Lai on his 2021 visit to Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal. Photo: Studio Incendo/CC BY 2.0
Readers, you might have noticed over the last few years a recurring name - Jimmy Lai. Well buckle up because we are about to take you on a long Lai ride, which could best be summed up as "why we care so much about Lai and why you should too".
Let's start with the basics. Jimmy Lai is a businessman and media mogul who founded the pro-democracy Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily. Lai has been in prison since December 2020 for his part in 2019 pro-democracy protests and unauthorised assemblies. At the end of last year he was sentenced to five years and nine months on fraud charges for allegedly violating a lease contract, and he faces more serious charges for violating Hong Kong's national security law, which came into effect in 2020. He is a political prisoner - one of more than 1,000 political prisoners who languish in jail in Hong Kong today.
As a multi-millionaire, Lai could have left Hong Kong, easily. He knew he was on the authorities' list and faced a grim future if he stayed. But stay he did. “Without fighting, we don’t have hope,” Lai said at the time.
Lai regards his imprisonment as "the summit of his own life" and what a life it has been. He was born into a wealthy family in southern China in 1947, but when the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949 his family lost everything. He fled to Hong Kong aged 12 after he was given a chocolate bar as a tip and found out it originated in Hong Kong. There he toiled in a sweatshop (and taught himself English), before founding the clothing label Giordano in 1981, a business that would go on to become his media empire.The Tiananmen Square Massacre was when he first became involved in politics. Lai said the 1989 crackdown inspired him to switch from the garment industry to media. Alas it also made him a target. The CCP responded by threatening to close his stores.
Still it didn't stop Lai, who went onto found Next Media and in 1995, launch Apple Daily, which quickly became Hong Kong’s second most popular newspaper. All the while the threats continued. In 2013, for example, a group of masked men ambushed his home, threatening workers and burning copies of Apple Daily.
If it's not clear already, Lai is principled to the core. From the big things to the small things, he has a very strong sense of justice. Lai - who discovered Catholicism (via his wife) in the late 1990s - has been a tireless advocate for the religious freedoms in China and Hong Kong and gets a lot of strength from his faith. (Last year we published letters ([link removed]) written from his prison cell, which were infused with religious references). His children even remember him going out of his way to pick up litter on beaches while on holiday.
Great guy right? And yet despite all of this and despite the fact he has been a UK national since 1996, the UK government has been woefully quiet about his imprisonment. More depressing still, it fits into a trend of our government being very passive when it comes to UK political prisoners abroad, which has left many - especially those in media - concerned that if they were to travel to more hostile regions and end up incarcerated they'd get bupkis from the UK.
So here we are today, more than two years on from Lai's imprisonment. On Monday British parliamentarians launched ([link removed]) a report (which Index contributed to) on the state of media freedom in Hong Kong in relation to Lai. One MP went straight from the launch to meet Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and ask him to once again raise Lai's case. Four days on and still not a whisper. Sebastian Lai, Jimmy's son, has asked to meet Sunak, again. Still no luck. The stakes of inaction couldn't be higher, both for Lai who is 75 years old and deserves to see out his last days in the sun, and for media freedom more broadly, a value we should be shouting about. If the CCP think the world's leaders will turn away from someone like Lai, what message does that send?
We leave you with a request. It is World Press Freedom Day next Wednesday. Please take to social media and do your own bit of shouting. Post one/some/all of the following, or indeed your own message:
"I stand with Jimmy Lai"
"I stand with Hong Kong"
"Journalism is not a crime"
"Free Jimmy Lai and the Apple Daily Seven"
"Free Evan Gershkovich"
And if you have the appetite, message your local politician and ask them to raise Lai's case. Let's create some noise, for Lai and all the others behind bars simply for striving for a better, more just world.
Over and out,
Jemimah Steinfeld
Editor-in-chief
PS Speaking of not giving up, we interviewed Oliver Slow, author of a new book on Myanmar's military junta, who told us about how a thirst for democracy is still alive in the country and to not give up hope. Read his interview here ([link removed]) and learn what a flash protest is.
** Join us for our spring magazine launch
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As India becomes the world’s largest nation it should be the world’s largest democracy. But was India ever a real democracy? If it was, how is it being threatened under current leader Narendra Modi? And what does the word democracy even mean?
What can be done to protect the rights of minorities in India? What will Modi’s priorities be ahead of the 2024 elections? And crucially just how resilient is Indian democracy and is it open to everyone? The newest edition of Index on Censorship magazine explores these questions as we examine the role of free expression in contemporary Indian society. To launch the issue join Salil Tripathi, award-winning journalist, Dr Maya Tudor of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, Hanan Zaffar, a journalist and film maker based in South Asia, and Jemimah Steinfeld, Index editor-in-chief, for an online panel discussion about past, present and future challenges to India’s democracy. Book your free tickets here ([link removed]) .
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** From the archive
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** War games
Alex de Waal
November 2007
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Sudan is once again making headlines. In this 2007 article ([link removed]) , regular Index contributor Alex De Waal reports on the roots of the conflict that filled headlines some 20 years ago.
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