BURSTStrongly worded statement says bloc ‘deplores’ 20-year sentence for the pro-democracy figure in Hong Kong
Sebastien Lai, Jimmy Lai’s son, has just been speaking to BBC News, offering his first reaction to his father’s overnight sentence.
He said:
“It’s obviously heartbreaking, but unfortunately it’s not unexpected. Look, I think that what was unexpected was that it took five years to get to this point. The last five years, my father has spent in solitary confinement in the maximum security prison.”
“Unfortunately, time is running out for my father. The clock is ticking at his age, given the conditions and he’s got heart issues. He’s lost ten kilos over the last year alone. Time is not on his side.”
“In a time when we’re talking about closer relationships to China, a normalisation of relationships … despite all the national security concerns that we have, rightly so, in this country … if they can’t even put a 78 year old man who’s guilty of nothing more than giving all that he has to stand up for freedom and liberty for the people of Hong Kong on a plane and sending him back here now, especially given his deteriorating health, that tells you all you need to know about the relation that we have with China.”
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