Jimmy Lai’s daughter is urging Chinese authorities to free her father, the Hong Kong Catholic dissident, warning that his health has deteriorated so severely in prison that he may not survive.
In an op-ed published Dec. 9 by the Washington Post, Claire Lai described her father — once a “large, robust man” known among friends and family for hosting bountiful dinners — as physically broken after five years of incarceration, much of it spent in solitary confinement.
“Half a decade since his incarceration as a political prisoner in Hong Kong, my father, who turned 78 on Monday, is suffering from rapidly deteriorating health,” she wrote, citing his diabetes, hypertension, failing hearing and vision, persistent infections, and constant pain that sometimes leaves him “struggling even to stand up.”
As CatholicVote previously reported, Jimmy Lai, a convert and billionaire media mogul, was arrested in 2020 after speaking out against Communist oppression in Hong Kong. In 2021, the government forced the shutdown of his pro-democracy news publication, The Apple Daily. After his trial concluded in August, he has awaited sentencing that may be life in prison under a national security law China imposed on the territory in 2020 that criminalizes dissent.
The charges against him, Claire argued, stem from actions that “would bring no consequences in most countries,” including lighting a candle for Tiananmen Square victims and expressing support for peaceful protests.
Claire said she has watched her father’s decline firsthand during court appearances and prison visits.
“His skin is drying up, his nails are changing color before falling off, and his teeth are decaying. His eyes are often dry and bloodshot,” she wrote. “I’ve been told that some of this may be due to vitamin deficiencies, which wouldn’t surprise me, given his prolonged incarceration in a cell without direct access to sunlight or fresh air.”
The family has almost no information about what medical care he receives because no outside physician has been permitted to examine him, Claire said.
Several recent episodes have heightened their alarm. In June 2024, she said, her father appeared in court “pale and shivering so intensely that the proceeding was adjourned.” Two months later, an officer informed her that a legal visit had been canceled because he was too unwell. And four months ago, she said, lawyers reported to the court that Lai had developed significant heart problems — issues he never had before going to prison.
Despite the dire conditions and his failing health, her father remains unshaken in his Catholic faith, according to Claire.
“His religious faith sustains him,” Claire wrote. “He says God is with him at every step, prayer brings him joy, and the prayers of others bring him a lightness of being. The first thing he asked me to bring him after he was arrested was the Bible he kept on his nightstand at home.”
Claire insists her father “is innocent of any crime” and that releasing him would ultimately serve the government’s interests.
“I believe that setting him free would be to the government’s advantage,” she said. “He has suffered enough, and unless something changes, he is very likely to become a martyr for freedom.”
If freed, she said, Lai would depart Hong Kong and “pose no threat to the regime,” adding that his “crusading days are over” and that he wishes only to spend his remaining time with family.
With closing arguments in his national security trial completed, the family now awaits a verdict.
“May the government have the wisdom to see the better choice,” she concluded, “and may he return to us soon.”