Radio Free Asia
Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai’s legal team and son are being harassed with death and rape threats to discourage advocacy for the jailed pro-democracy businessman, his lawyer said Wednesday.
Caoilfhionn Gallagher of Doughty Street Chambers, a law firm with a focus on international human rights, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Lai’s lawyers are regularly targeted by Hong Kong authorities, Chinese state media and anonymous internet users.
Gallagher said the coordinated campaign of abuse was heightened whenever she or Lai’s son, Sebastien, were set to speak at high-profile events, with upticks, in particular, of threatening online messages.
“They come thick and fast on key days for the case,” she told the committee. “I woke up this morning to 17 different rape and death threats on a day when I’m giving evidence before this committee.”
Lai is the founder of clothing brand Giordano and pro-democracy Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily. He was arrested in 2020 and charged with violating Hong Kong’s national security law, and was then hit with a slew of extra charges, including fraud and illegal demonstration.
He was sentenced last year to five years and nine months in prison after being convicted of fraud, but is still awaiting trial for the original charges of violating the controversial national security law.
‘Comprehensive and sophisticated’
Gallagher said the online threats were only part of the transnational repression faced by Lai’s support team, noting her team was frequently accused in Chinese state media of being “foreign agents” themselves committing crimes under Hong Kong’s national security law.
“Importantly, none of us are Hong Kongers. None of us are in exile. None of us are dissidents,” Gallagher said, adding Lai was also accused of violating the law by employing foreign lawyers.
It had already been made clear to Sebastien that he would face criminal charges, like his father, if he ever returned to Hong Kong, she said. But the threats against the lawyers made even less sense.
“We are international lawyers working for our clients, seeking to hold China and Hong Kong to account for flagrant violations of generalized and fundamental rights protected by international law,” Gallagher said.
Read the full article at https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/jimmy-lai-lawyer-12062023104201.html
