{"id":76309,"date":"2026-02-09T23:35:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/09\/uk-un-eu-jail-sentence-jimmy-lai-hong-kong"},"modified":"2026-02-09T23:35:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:35:23","slug":"uk-un-and-eu-deplore-monumental-injustice-of-jimmy-lais-20-year-jail-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76309","title":{"rendered":"UK, UN and EU deplore \u2018monumental injustice\u2019 of Jimmy Lai\u2019s 20-year jail sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Son says Hong Kong media figure, 78, fears dying alone while legal team say Lai is now world\u2019s highest profile political prisoner<\/p>\n<p>The UK, the UN, EU and rights groups have condemned the sentencing of the pro-democracy activist and publisher Jimmy Lai, a British citizen who has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/09\/jimmy-lai-sentencing-china-hong-kong-pro-democracy-businessman\">been jailed for an unprecedented 20 years<\/a> in Hong Kong for national security convictions that critics say are politically motivated.<\/p>\n<p>Yvette Cooper, the UK foreign secretary, said: \u201cFor 78-year-old Jimmy Lai, 20 years is an effective life sentence, following a politically motivated prosecution under a law that was imposed to silence China\u2019s critics. The Hong Kong authorities must end Jimmy Lai\u2019s appalling ordeal and release him to be with his family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/09\/uk-un-eu-jail-sentence-jimmy-lai-hong-kong\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Son says Hong Kong media figure, 78, fears dying alone while legal team say Lai is now world\u2019s highest profile political prisonerThe UK, the UN, EU and rights groups have condemned the sentencing of the pro-democracy activist and publisher Jimmy Lai, a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5173,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50,530,48,3034,1622,54,52,84,42,49,3465],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-european-union","category-hong-kong","category-jimmy-lai","category-keir-starmer","category-press-freedom","category-uk-news","category-united-nations","category-world-news","category-xi-jinping","category-yvette-cooper"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5173"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76309"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76310,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76309\/revisions\/76310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}