15th Meeting 60th Session of Human Rights Council UN Web TV
Description
- Item 3: Interactive dialogue with Working Group on arbitrary detention (Cont’d)
SPEAKERS:
International PEN, Mr. Sebastien Lai
发言内容：
Thank you, Mr/Mme Chair.
I thank International PEN for the opportunity to address the Council today.
International PEN has documented a disturbing global trend in the abuse of national security laws to suppress the voices writers, journalists and publishers.
My father’s case is emblematic of this trend.
My father is Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy campaigner and publisher currently imprisoned in Hong Kong.
Last year the Working Group found that my father is arbitrarily detained. You ruled that:
• He has been targeted because of his political opinions, his journalism and his activism; and
• the Hong Kong authorities wrongly used the law to try and silence him.The Working Group ruled that he should be immediately released.
Yet, my father remains in prison.
The Hong Kong authorities have persisted in their targeting of him.
My father’s prosecution is the death knell for rights and freedoms in Hong Kong.
If convicted, he faces the rest of his life in prison.
He has already been imprisoned in solitary confinement for over four and a half years. He is almost 78 years of age and diabetic. His health is fading.
My greatest fear is that I will never see my father again. That he will die in prison, and the rights and freedoms that we held so dear in Hong Kong will die with him.
Today, I call on the authorities of the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong to take heed of the Working Group’s Opinion.
I call on them to immediately and unconditionally release my father, before it’s too late.
消息来源：
1.UN WEB TV, 15th Meeting – 60th Session of Human Rights Council,https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1j/k1j6dkfsn0.
