Jimmy Lai has occupied a Hong Kong jail cell for over three and a half years, charged with publishing a newspaper supportive of the pro-democracy cause. Yet his story is more than that of a silenced newspaper publisher.
His friends and colleagues say that the imprisonment of the 76-year-old billionaire is a testament to his dedication, fearlessness and love of his country, fueled by his Catholic faith.
In August 2020, Lai was arrested by Hong Kong authorities for violating the Chinese National Security Law, which forbade negative speech and hostilities towards the Chinese authorities after China assumed control of Hong Kong in 1997. His trial remains ongoing.
A ‘witness to detachment’
Mark Simon has continued to walk by Lai’s side throughout the ordeal. He first met Lai in 2000 and went to work for Lai as the executive director of Apple Daily the following year, even walking with Lai during his conversion to the Catholic faith.
In his time watching Lai’s leadership, he has found him an inspiring figure.
“It’s the consistency of decency that inspires me. Jimmy is a very decent man, and I think that comes from experiencing the Chinese Communist Revolution when he was little, as he had a very tough, younger life,” Simon shared with Our Sunday Visitor. “Jimmy has basically developed an understanding of the strong protecting the weak and a sense of decency. Jimmy is a hard man. He’s a tough guy. But that decency makes him the type of person who changes the world.”
While Joseph Cella served as U.S. ambassador to Fiji 2019-2021, he met and befriended Lai. From his encounters with Lai and now hearing how he handles solitary confinement, Cella sees Lai as a great example of the Catholic life.
“Jimmy manifests the virtues of fortitude and courage and is a powerful witness for Catholics in enduring what he endured,” Cella told Our Sunday Visitor. “He is using this time as a 76-year-old man in prison, living out his faith, digging deep into religious books that he’s never dug into, and expressing it in sacred art.”
Beyond the virtues of fortitude and courage, Lai serves as a radical witness to detachment, a man who lost billions in personal wealth for the pursuit of democracy and freedom.
“Lai is a witness to detachment,” Cella said. “He is a man who came from relatively nothing to vast sums of wealth. But when the opportunity came for him to leave the cause of defending human rights in Hong Kong, he could have left for Britain, where he also had citizenship, but he did not. He remained in Hong Kong and continued to fight for freedom.”
Lessons for American Catholics
Lai’s story contains other lessons for American Catholics, Simon says, such as the example that evil exists in the world.
“We have to remember, as American Catholics, that there’s evil in this world, and there are evil people,” Simon said. “That’s hard sometimes for us to comprehend. Very few people in our society bump into evil. The Chinese Communist Party is unique in that there is nothing good about it. It is evil all the way through. Those people drop their morality, they drop their decency, and they benefit from it.”
When he contemplates Lai’s situation, Cella is brought back to meditating on the radical loneliness Christ experienced during his passion and the example of saints who endured that same loneliness. He sees this as a call to offer up loneliness in his own life.
“When thinking about Jimmy, I am brought back to thinking of that image in the Passion of the Christ when Our Lord is radically alone in the cell, hanging. And back to St. Thomas More, who experiences great loneliness when he is in prison,” Cella said. “I can only imagine the radical loneliness that Christ and More endured as they were awaiting their trial and death. That is a profound meditation.”
Hope is not lost for Lai’s cause, however, and Americans can help. Simon encourages citizens to write to their federal representatives and ask them to support any bills or measures that relate to Lai’s case.
“People would be shocked at what five or six constituents in the district can get out of a congressman by just writing and saying, ‘Please pay attention to this,'” Simon said. “It sounds like fantasy, but yes, writing makes a big difference. The worst thing to ever happen to Jimmy Lai and other political prisoners is that people stop writing those letters; people forget them.”
