(OSV News) ─ Following his Dec. 15 conviction under Hong Kong's draconian national security law, media entrepreneur and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai faces the possibility of life in prison.
For his daughter Claire, the trial of her father revealed Lai is first and foremost a man of unbroken faith, who trusts in the Lord in times of the impossible.
"I expected the result," Claire Lai told OSV News Dec. 18, three days after the conviction, also admitting that she had an "unnatural hope" that after "seeing my father having dedicated that much of himself" to defend his innocence, the verdict would be different.
On the day of the conviction, an unexpected ray of hope reached her, by mail.
"I had written to my father, I think, around last month, and I expressed certain doubts and I've expressed worries, both for him and for myself" and because "the letters take a bit of time to process, I got his reply right around the time of the verdict."
In his reply, she said her father "gently chided me. He told me, 'Why? Why do you doubt when our Lord is so good?' And that's sort of what I reminded myself of: You know what? We shouldn't doubt and we should trust."
Raised in a "very Catholic family," she said that trust in God is "something that I've known my whole life, but I think it's especially the last five years that has continuously taught me" to trust, She mentioned that the notice of the date of the verdict came on Dec. 12 ─ the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
She said while "the verdict is still what it is, but I think it's also something where I know that the Blessed Mother is watching over my father and our family under her mantle, and she's bringing us closer to her son and his church. And maybe it's just a cry of desperation, but I do think that there must be some meaning there."
Claire said "looking at the judgment, it's very clear already" that the Chinese authorities "have a certain picture in mind of who my father is ─ which is not supported by any of the evidence that was presented during the trial" and that she's "not expecting a light sentence," especially because crimes against national security "carry a very heavy sentence."
"Even if my father doesn't get the maximum, if he gets something like 10 years, 15 years ─ it would be the equivalent of a life sentence" for a 78-year old man.
Asked what she would like to tell the authorities in Hong Kong, she replied:
"My father, he represents a lot of the values that we hold dear, but he also represents a lot of the values that made Hong Kong a financial success, and it's off the backs of people like him that Hong Kong became the almost miraculous success story that it was. And I would say -- don't let a man like that become a martyr behind bars. He has worked for over 60 years for the betterment of Hong Kong. Don't let a man like that become a martyr for truth and a martyr for freedom. It's not a stain that they'll be able to wipe off. If a British citizen dies behind bars, it will be a very big blow to the reputation of Hong Kong that once had a very enviable legal system.
"He just turned 78 last week and if there was something I could say to the authorities, is that the only just and honorable thing here is to free my 78-year-old father. They've convicted him and kept him behind bars for five years, and they've forcibly torn our family apart."
She hopes the case of freedom for her father "will be solved leader to leader," and she said she's "very grateful for the support we have gotten from President (Donald) Trump and his administration. They have a proven track record of freeing the unjustly detained. And I hope my father is next. And we've also gotten support from the U.K. government because my father is solely a British citizen. And I do think that, with the U.K., with the prime minister, Keir Starmer, going to China at the end of January, that this is an issue that will be solved leader to leader."
Claire recounted that the family's prison visits over the last five years "were extremely limited" and that "in one year we get less than 24 hours" of seeing him along with her mother, Teresa, and occasionally, her brother Augustin.
For decades, Lai, who founded the now-defunct pro-democracy Apple Daily, campaigned for freedom of the press and freedom of expression in Hong Kong, which was designated a Special Administrative Region of China in 1997, when British rule ended after more than 150 years. Hong Kong’s Basic Law was supposed to allow the region "to exercise a high degree of autonomy and enjoy executive, legislative and independent judicial power, including that of final adjudication."
However, after a year of pro-democracy protests in 2019, China imposed the national security law ─ under which Lai was arrested in August 2020 and has been imprisoned since December of that year. He has pleaded not guilty to two charges of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and one count of conspiring to publish seditious materials. With the Dec. 15 conviction, he could face life in prison.
Remembering the first prison visit in 2020, his daughter said, "The first thing he asked me to bring him was the Bible that he kept by his bedside."
"He wakes up around midnight every night to pray, and he wakes up before the crack of dawn in order to read the Gospel. At first, he would ask the guards if they could turn on the lights, and for the first six months, sometimes they would say yes, but afterwards they would say no," she said.
"So instead he would lean against the door," she continued, "and on the door there's like a little window, really just a little bit bigger than the iPhone, and there would be bars on it, and he would try to catch the light from the corridor, and he would read it that way.
"But it's not good for his eyes and it's not good for his back because he has a myriad of health issues, but it brings him a lot of joy.
Asked whether Jimmy Lai is able to access sacraments in Hong Kong's Stanley and Lai Chi Kok prisons, his daughter said that "For the first two or three years, he did get holy Communion regularly, but afterwards, he was denied the holy Communion. And now he gets it, but very, very, very intermittently. I mean, this year, I think he got it three times. It's better than nothing, but it's still not OK. Especially because the Eucharist means so much to our faith. It's how we come into communion with the Lord, and it costs them nothing to allow him to be administered the Eucharist.
"We tried to enter (with) a rosary and we weren't allowed either from the start."
Jimmy Lai is "kept in solitary confinement" and "in his cell, there's no one to his left, right, top or bottom; the natural sunlight is blocked; it's a tiny cell, no bigger than most closets."
Claire said her father reads religious books behind bars. "He loves Bishop (Robert) Barron, Pope Benedict, Cardinal Ratzinger as he then was -- and he always goes back to 'Jesus of Nazareth' and he really likes Romano Guardini," she recounted, mentioning a favorite philosopher and theologian of the late Pope Francis.
He enjoys reading "our dear friend George Weigel, the biography of Pope Benedict by Peter Seewald, Cardinal (Robert) Sarah, St. John Henry Newman," as well as Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, Thomas Merton -- he particularly liked "The Seven Storey Mountain," Claire said -- and G.K. Chesterton.
"I mean, he reads a lot, and then he draws as well -- pictures of the crucifixion, pictures of the Blessed Mother at the Annunciation. And I think what the Blessed Mother really does teach us that there is nothing that really conquers doubt or fear as much as God's love."
She said that "he's not allowed to send those (drawings) out anymore, so I haven't really seen it, but I've only heard him talk about it."
Jimmy Lai converted to Catholic faith "at the time of the handover" of Hong Kong to China in 1997 ─ "right around that time when most Hongkongers, their hearts, including his, were filled with a certain degree of doubt and a degree of fear about the future of Hong Kong. And it was then that he was ready to receive God's love."
Reflecting on his conversion, Claire said her father "thinks that from early on, he knows that he was watched over by our good Lord. And we all are very lucky that we're surrounded by people who nurture our faith," she said, mentioning Cardinal Joseph Zen, who "welcomed him into the church," and William McGurn, an American political writer and chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush, who is Jimmy Lai's godfather.
The 29-year-old said her law degree helped her become an advocate for her father's cause, and she sees her knowledge in the field "providential," while she underlines that she "just wanted to be a faithful daughter to my father."
"I've had a very easy life prior to these five years. And it's these five years where our Lord has carried my father and carried our family. And I am just so grateful," she said.
"When I went to law school, I never thought that the day would come, that it would be because my dad would be arrested ... and the degree was what has helped me a lot in the last few years, and I'm extremely grateful for that."
She said before he was arrested, the acclaimed businessman's world was "just quite a normal family ─ we spent holidays together, we spent big days together. I went to boarding school, but hardly a day would go by where we didn't call each other or FaceTime."
She said prior to 2020, he loved hosting people -- "He's an extremely giving man," Claire underlined. "And he loved to share the things that he loves. He used to host friends for dinner because he loves good food."
"He's a spirited man who loves his family, loves God, loves truth and loves freedom," she added, saying it's the simple things she misses most, like sharing a meal, cooking or going to Mass with her father.
"We were just a very simple family, but an extremely loving one."
"I just want us to be reunited as a family," she said, mentioning that one thing "dad always is a bit envious of" around Christmas time is "when we tell him we go to midnight Mass for Christmas because he doesn't get to (do it)."
While during prison visits they're allowed only to see him through the glass, "I dream of the moment I get to hug my father again for the first time," Claire said.
"But we did end each visit with a prayer," she said. "He's sustained by other people's prayers."
"Sometimes I worry because he looks in poor health. And then he's like: 'Don't worry. I can feel that people are praying for me’ and it means a great deal. Truly. It really does."
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Paulina Guzik is international editor for OSV News. Follow her on X @Guzik_Paulina
