The guilty verdict that was issued on December 15 against Jimmy Lai, 78 years old, in prison since 2020, is yet another sad day for Hong Kong, for democracy and for freedom.
Jimmy Lai is a former entrepreneur and publisher with a story that deserves to be known. Born into a poor family in Canton (China), like many kids of his time he made his fortune in Hong Kong, creating a well-known textile brand from nothing. After the tragedy of Tiananmen Square (1989), Jimmy adheres to the ideals of freedom and democracy and embraces the Catholic faith.
Trouble begins: the boycott by the Chinese regime forces him to sell his company. But Lai didn’t give up: in 1995 he founded the Apple Daily, the most important democratic newspaper in Hong Kong, now suppressed and with its editorial team imprisoned.
With the introduction of the national security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong (1 July 2020), the main democratic leaders of the great metropolis, many of them Catholics, are imprisoned. Jimmy Lai has a British passport and could easily escape abroad. Instead he chooses to remain in Hong Kong and face with admirable awareness the repression that falls on him as an exemplary target.
Jimmy Lai is elderly and plagued by health problems
In the isolation of his cell he is supported by faith, which he expresses by drawing images of the crucifix and reading the Bible. Among the few who were able to visit it was Card Joseph Zen, 93 years old, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong. The relationship between the two is very strong: Card Zen had baptized Jimmy and participated in the trial hearings. On the day of the verdict, the elderly cardinal, supporting himself with his cane, accompanied Jimmy’s wife and son to court. The sentence for the crimes of collusion with foreign forces and sedition was unfortunately already written in the political nature of the trial. The sentence will be delivered after January 12 and it is humanly unthinkable that he will be spared life imprisonment.
The trials of the other democratic leaders will now resume. I mentioned above that many of them, like Jimmy Lai, are Catholic. They are in prison because they are Democrats, not for their faith. But they are democrats because, as Christians, they love freedom, which is the foundation of the dignity of children of God. They grew up in our parishes, schools and associations and took seriously the social vocation, that is, to justice and the common good, of faith. They are confessors of the faith: certainly their testimony deserves more recognition. Very few ask for their release. In fact, we live in a time and a world that do not love freedom or those who give their very lives for it.
