Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's a privilege to appear before your committee as a witness and to be able to commit to Hansard the truth about what is happening to Jimmy Lai.
Mr. Chair, just a few short years ago, the legal system in Hong Kong was internationally respected. Now, I believe it is accurate to describe that same legal system as a tool of the executive and an occasional weapon of political persecution. In my view, no case better exemplifies Hong Kong's descent than that of Jimmy Lai.
Three features of Mr. Lai's trial stand out as emblematic of Hong Kong's authoritarian decline.
The first feature is that a government, aided and abetted by the prosecution and law enforcement, is engaging in malicious mischaracterization of Jimmy Lai, constructing a narrative about him which they know to be false.
The second feature is that to procure this narrative, coerced testimony will be relied upon.
The third feature is that attempts are being made to incriminate foreign nationals and blame them for inciting the 2019 unrest in Hong Kong.
On the first point of malicious mischaracterization, the bald truth of Jimmy's case is that he is simply a character in a fabricated narrative. There are no crimes here, as you have heard so powerfully described by Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC. In essence, Beijing needs a mastermind to blame for the 2019 pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and Jimmy Lai is the best fit. That's it. Tragically for the Lai family, Jimmy is the person selected to bear the yoke of “mastermind” behind this movement and everything that goes with it.
This is false, of course. Beijing knows it to be false. The prosecutors in the case know it to be false. It is self-evidently false on the basis of readily available evidence. It's so obviously false, in fact, that coerced testimony has to be deployed to make it seem true. The actual truth is that there is precious little evidence to connect Jimmy Lai to the predominately youth-led democracy movement in Hong Kong. However, in jurisdictions where the legal system has shown itself willing to yield to executive power, evidence can always be found.
This is where the tragic story of Andy Li enters this farce.
Andy Li, known to some on the committee, was arrested under the national security law in 2020 for, inter alia, working with foreign politicians in Hong Kong. Shortly after, he tried to flee to Taiwan with 11 others. The 12 were apprehended in Chinese waters and taken to Shenzhen prison in China, where things got very bad for them, especially Andy.
The Washington Post reported the following last month after a year-long investigation:
Most of the 12 were not physically abused, but seven people familiar with conditions at the center said screaming could “consistently” be heard coming from one cell: Li's.
Since his time in Shenzhen, Andy has appeared as a key witness in Jimmy Lai's trial, to the surprise of nobody. However, even Andy's testimony is not enough. If Jimmy colluded with foreign forces, there have to be some forces with which he has colluded. This is why I, together with Global Magnitsky Justice founder Bill Browder and my Japanese colleague Shiori Kanno, are named as co-conspirators with Jimmy Lai on this third charge: “colluding with foreign force[s] to undermine national security”. They want to try to claim that foreign forces—us—were somehow commissioned by Jimmy to undermine national security in Hong Kong.
Mr. Chair, it gives me some satisfaction to be able to say to your committee and beyond that these allegations of collusion would not be a crime in any normal jurisdiction, nor would it be something to be ashamed of. However, it is false. Jimmy Lai had nothing whatsoever to do with IPAC's founding or operations. I know, because I have dotted every I and crossed every T. If I'd had the opportunity to give evidence in these kangaroo proceedings in which I am named but to which I have never been called, this is what I would have said. It's all invention or amplification of half-truth to suit Beijing's somewhat bizarre obsession with a mastermind narrative.
I am going to finish with this: It's tempting in such situations to forgive those who go along with authoritarian overreach as “useful idiots”. However, that implies something passive. I believe it's far too generous a way to describe those involved here. The prosecution in Jimmy's case, led by Anthony Chau and Ivan Cheung, have not been passive. They are actively and enthusiastically colluding with the government to persecute Jimmy Lai. Chau and Cheung's conduct heaps shame upon the Hong Kong legal profession, trashing the legacy of many finer lawyers who went before them and grinding the rule of law—hard-earned by more courageous and principled men and women—underfoot.
Mr. Chair, I think I'm over time.
Thank you.