In a library above a building on Kildare Street in the heart of Dublin city, a young man is gently hitting the palm of his hand off the edge of the table.

The action doesn’t make a noise; its emphasis isn’t picked up on the microphone. 

It is a release for himself alone. 

It is the only moment in a 90-minute briefing that the man allows himself to show anything other than refined control and it is because in that moment he is asking an improbably small group of people not to let his 75-year-old father, Jimmy Lai, the billionaire media tycoon and freedom fighter, die in prison. 

Dressed in a pressed shirt, gilet, and tie, Sebastian Lai recalls a habitual memory of his father sitting at the family breakfast table reading Apple Daily, the largest pro-democracy Chinese-language newspaper in Hong Kong. 

It was the newspaper that Jimmy Lai founded, and the vehicle for himself and his team of dedicated journalists to champion human rights and challenge the regime. It was also a place for gossip and low-brow features, making it wildly popular and broad-stroke enough to appeal to the many. Apple Daily’s corporate parent was listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange but was forcibly shut down after Lai’s recent arrest.

“My father had this newspaper and it gave the truth and let people decide,” Sebastian Lai told a mostly empty library inside the Royal College of Physicians on Wednesday.

“He might die in prison, and that is a very scary thought. What one person can do may be limited but please speak out for my father as much as you can.” 

Given the geopolitical importance of the case and what it may signify for the future of Hong Kong, it was a surprise to see so few people assembled at the briefing.

Lai has been imprisoned since December 2020 for partaking in pro-democracy protests and unauthorised assemblies. He now faces charges, which were brought under the repressive National Security Laws imposed by China in 2020, of conspiracy to publish seditious material and collusion with foreign powers. 

Sebastian Lai, who can no longer return to Hong Kong as he would likely be imprisoned for speaking out against the regime, is in the middle of an international tour with his father’s legal team led by Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, the Irish-born international human-rights lawyer and barrister, based in Doughty Street Chambers in London. 

They are travelling to various seats of power, in an attempt to rally international support and condemnation of Lai’s arrest and ultimately to convince the British government to intervene and fight for his release. 

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Jimmy Lai’s story is remarkable and his life has been one lived pursuit of freedom. When Lai was 12 years old, he escaped from China and Mao Zedong’s famine-inducing “Great Leap Forward” as a stowaway on a boat bound for Hong Kong. 

Lai went in search of food, or more specifically as the story goes, in search of chocolate. “It was the first time I saw so much food. It was the first time I realised, food is actually freedom. When you have the choice of food,” he told The New York Times in September 2020. 

From there Lai worked in a textile factory as a child labourer, quickly became a manager, then an owner, and from there he opened a chain of clothing retailers called Giordano, described as the “Gap of Hong Kong” which now has more than 9,000 staff and 2,000 outlets across 30 countries.

His move to the media came in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre, as he saw information freedom as the path to democracy, and by 1995, he had founded Apple Daily. 

Lai went on to become a prominent and outspoken figure in the democracy movement in Hong Kong, his paper was deeply critical of the Chinese government and he has shown time and time again that he is willing to fight for Hong Kong’s freedom over his own.

The true meaning of that was never more evident than in the consideration that Lai, who has properties all over the world, could have escaped to the UK, the US, or anywhere in the EU when he knew an arrest was likely. But he chose not to, believing that there is no true freedom without the power to speak to truth. 

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Last year the US issued a formal statement condemning the imprisonment of Lai and the “dismantling of Hong Kong’s autonomy under the National Security Law”.

But Lai is a British citizen and has been since 1994, yet the British government has yet to release a formal statement condemning his arrest, his imprisonment and the kafkaesque court charade, where it is already evident what the judgment of the handpicked bench will be. 

The Lai team has not been granted an audience with James Cleverly, the UK’s foreign minister, to discuss the case, although when they addressed the UN in Geneva last month, Cleverly did make a passing reference to Lai in his preceding address, something which Gallagher calls the beginning of a “trickle, when we need a flood”.

In contrast to the “radio silence” from the UK, Gallagher called the Irish response to date “heartening”. 

The contingent met with Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin on Wednesday and was hosted by Senator Malcolm Byrne who has raised Lai’s case in the Seanad previously. 

The significance of Ireland in the fight to free Lai is manifold, according to Gallagher, who has been subjected to repeated cyber attracts, death threats, rape threats, and threats to her children for her representation of her client. 

Not only is Ireland home to the EU headquarters of many of the tech companies which these threats are coming through and who she feels have been slow to act on reports of harassment, but Gallagher also believes there is a “real Irish importance to the case” because of Ireland’s EU membership, and foreign policy in relation to China.

Since the forced closure of Apple Daily, there has been a sharp escalation of efforts to dismantle Hong Kong’s democracy movement, and nonprofits, trade unions, and professional associations have all closed their doors. 

This is a significant pressure point the Lai team is trying to push – the commercial impact Jimmy Lai’s case, which is just the most high profile of many other similar prosecutions against pro-democracy activities, could have on Hong Kong’s reputation as a reliable and sustainable hub for global finance. 

Now, the impartiality of the courts system, once a cornerstone of trust for international companies, is being called into question as foreign critics suggest that the spirit of the rule of law has been broken by the national security laws and that the island is no longer free of political interference under the promised “one country, two systems” principle. 

The threat of indelible staining of Hong Kong’s commercial reputation as a safe place to do business is one Gallagher is pushing hard in the hopes of finding a painful pressure point.

“We know Hong Kong is concerned about how it is perceived, they are pushing a message to say we are open for business but you basically have a state-sponsored theft of a company,” Gallagher said.

“If you are serious about wanting to revitalise investment you need to let this man go.”

For Sebastian, the question of morality and the UK’s comfort with prioritising economic trade over human rights is also paramount. “There is this idea that trade with China should be held up above everything else, they could be right or not but it is important in any trade to look at the costs,” Sebastian said

“Are we as UK citizens willing to give up at any cost, what is right and wrong and the right to a free trial in order to trade with China? For me that is a no and for most people that is a no.”

Until Britain decides to intervene and make a case for one of its own citizen’s freedom, it is hard to see it what the turning point for the journalist and democracy fighter will be.