New York, June 24, 2025—On the fourth anniversary of the closure of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, the Committee to Protect Journalists joined 32 other press freedom and human rights organizations in calling on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to urgently meet with Sebastien Lai, son of jailed publisher and British citizen Jimmy Lai.
Sebastien Lai has sought a meeting with Starmer for more than two years to advocate for the release of his father, 77-year-old Jimmy Lai, who founded Apple Daily. His health is deteriorating and he risks dying in jail.
Lai has been imprisoned for over 1,600 days, mostly in isolation, while awaiting the outcome of a long-delayed trial for sedition and conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the Beijing-imposed National Security Law. After Lai’s arrest in 2020, Apple Daily was shuttered on June 24, 2021, following police raids and the freezing of the paper’s assets.
Read the full joint letter here.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CP Staff.