Family members and advocates of imprisoned Catholic pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai have offered urgent pleas for his release ahead of President Xi Jinping’s planned trip to the United States to meet President Donald Trump. Source: EWTN News.
In anticipation of Mr Xiʼs visit to Washington on September 24, Sebastien Lai, Jimmy Lai’s son, met with leaders to advocate for his father.
He joined a congressional hearing on Wednesday led by Republican Representative for New Jersey, Chris Smith.
“Jimmy Lai is not being imprisoned because he committed any act of violence whatsoever,” Mr Smith, co-chair of the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China, said.
“His son has emphasised that his father has never, never advocated violence. Rather, Jimmy Lai used his voice, his newspaper, and his public platform to support freedom and democracy,” he said.
Mr Smith said he introduced legislation on Wednesday that would require the State Department to quickly assess any death in custody of a Hong Kong political prisoner and impose sanctions on officials found responsible. He titled the bill the “Jimmy Lai Hong Kong Political Prisoner Accountability Act of 2026.”
At the hearing, Sebastien Lai offered testimony along with Steve Yates, a research fellow on China and national security policy, and Mark Clifford, president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation.
“I want to thank America, President Trump, who has been a true champion of my fatherʼs, his administration, and the senators and members of both parties whose support has never wavered and only gotten stronger. That is moral courage, and my family does not take it for granted,” Sebastien Lai said.
“By the end of this year my father will have spent six years in a maximum-security prison in solitary. At 78, he is the oldest political prisoner in Hong Kong. With a 20-year sentence looming over him, if he’s not freed soon, he will most likely die in prison,” he said.
“My sister Claire was to testify beside me today. A few weeks ago, she was diagnosed with cancer,” he said.
“I was with her in London last week as she began chemotherapy. My father learned of his own daughterʼs diagnosis from a maximum-security prison. He cannot hold her hand. She wants nothing more than to have him with her for this fight,“ he said.
The appeal to Mr Xi “is simple,” Sebastien Lai said. “My father poses no threat. His imprisonment makes him a symbol of injustice; his death in prison would be a disgrace. Let Jimmy Lai come home to his family and let him sit beside his daughter in her hardest moment.”
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Jimmy Lai’s family, advocates press for his release before Xi-Trump meeting (By Tessa Gervasini, EWTN News)
