China and Hong Kong: Jimmy Lai and two lawyers designated prisoners of conscience

Amnesty International has designated three prominent human rights defenders from Hong Kong and mainland China prisoners of conscience today as the organisation called for their immediate and unconditional release.

Human rights lawyers Chow Hang-tung and Ding Jiaxi, along with the free media advocate Jimmy Lai, are all currently imprisoned solely because of their peaceful human rights activism (see further case details below).

Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s China Director, said:

“As the Chinese government touts progress on its measures to promote human rights, the stories of these three human rights defenders demonstrate a starkly different reality inside the country.

“Meeting with diplomats, discussing politics, complaining about unfair treatment in police custody, talking with friends over dinner, these are all things that can get you jailed in today’s China.

“The ongoing detentions of Chow, Ding and Lai demonstrate the continuing failure of the authorities in China to uphold their international obligations, and their prosecution lays bare the cowardice of state officials who cannot accept criticism, whether from international experts or from their own citizens.

“By designating Chow, Lai and Ding as prisoners of conscience, we stand with all those unjustly detained for saying out loud what they believe to be true. All three - along with the many others imprisoned in Hong Kong and mainland China solely for their beliefs - must be immediately and unconditionally released.”

Jimmy Lai and Chow Hang-tung have both been targeted amid a broader dismantling of human rights and civic space in Hong Kong since the introduction of a Beijing-imposed National Security Law in 2020. Ding Jiaxi, as with many human rights defenders in mainland China, is the victim of the authorities’ overly-broad and vague “national security-related” laws that justify convictions in secret trials and lengthy jail sentences.

Amnesty considers a prisoner of conscience to be any person imprisoned solely because of their political, religious or other conscientiously held beliefs, their ethnic origin, sex, colour, language, national or social origin, socio-economic status, birth, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or other status, and who has not used violence or advocated violence or hatred in the circumstances leading to their detention.

Jimmy Lai

Nearly 200 police raided Lai’s Apple Daily newspaper shortly after the National Security Law was enacted. He was arrested along with several newspaper executives, and eventually charged with “colluding with foreign forces” under the law, and with sedition. Apple Daily closed in June 2021 following another police raid and the freezing of its assets, in what Amnesty called a “flagrant attack on press freedom”.

Lai faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment in his ongoing national security trial. Courts in Hong Kong courts have already convicted Lai on four separate cases involving “unauthorised assemblies” for his engagement in peaceful protest - including attending a Tiananmen Square vigil. He has also been prosecuted for alleged “fraud”. As a result, Lai is already serving combined prison sentences which will see him unjustly spend nearly seven years behind bars.

Lai, who will be 77 in December, has reportedly been held in solitary confinement, and there are serious concerns about his health, especially following the cancellation of his appearance in court in early June. These concerns are exacerbated by the lengthy delays in his National Security Law trial, which began last December. After a long adjournment, it is currently expected to continue next month.

Chow Hang-tung

In 2020, Chow was charged over his participation in a peaceful vigil commemorating protesters killed in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, and charged again in 2021 after she asked people on social media to light candles in memory of the victims. She was jailed for 22 months for daring to commemorate their lives. Chow also faces a potential life prison sentence for “inciting subversion” under the National Security Law over her role as former leader of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which organised the city’s annual Tiananmen candlelight vigil for 30 years.

Despite her imprisonment, Chow has continued to use her legal knowledge to defend rights, including in 2022 to secure the lifting of reporting restrictions on bail hearings. Most recently, Chow mounted a legal challenge to rules that require women - but not men - to wear long trousers year-round in Hong Kong prisons, where summer temperatures regularly exceed 30 degrees. In the past, Chow has suffered retaliation for such advocacy, including repeated periods of solitary confinement. 

Ding Jiaxi

In April 2023, Ding was sentenced to 12 years in prison for “subverting state power”. He is one of dozens of lawyers and activists targeted after attending an informal gathering held in the city of Xiamen in 2019, where current affairs in China were discussed. Activist and legal scholar Xu Zhiyong, who had also attended the meeting, was sentenced to 14 years by the same court on the same charges.

Ding was held incommunicado in “residential surveillance at a designated location” for more than a year after being taken away on 26 December 2019. He was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment during detention, including long hours of interrogation and being bound to an iron “tiger-chair” with his limbs contorted for more than ten hours per day for many days. For nearly four years, from his initial detention until his transfer to prison following his sentencing, Ding was not allowed access to pen and paper. He reportedly faces serious restrictions in prison, including the withdrawal of “yard time”. His right to communication is strictly limited to letters from direct family members, telephone calls are prohibited and he has limited access to reading materials.

Note to editors

Amnesty International’s Prisoner of Conscience determination is based on the information available to Amnesty regarding the circumstances leading to the person’s detention. In naming a person as a Prisoner of Conscience, Amnesty International is affirming that this person must be immediately and unconditionally released but is not endorsing past or present views or conduct by them.