Sebastien Lai, son of Jimmy Lai, Jennifer Robinson, Barrister at Doughty Street Chambers & Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, Human rights lawyer, will address the National Press Club of Australia on "The Trial of Jimmy Lai, Press Freedom and Democracy in Hong Kong".
Jimmy Lai, renowned pro-democracy campaigner, media entrepreneur, writer and founder of Apple Daily, is currently on trial in Hong Kong under the controversial new National Security Law (NSL), facing the possibility of a lifetime in prison.
Apple Daily was Hong Kong’s most popular Chinese language newspaper until its forced closure in 2021, which Amnesty International described as ‘the blackest day for media freedom in Hong Kong’.
Mr Lai has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, in recognition of the persecution he has faced for his work advocating for democracy and civil liberties in Hong Kong. His imprisonment is the highest profile case of the crackdown on freedom of the press, business and democracy in the region.
Now dedicating his time to advocating for his father’s release, Sebastien Lai is visiting Australia, along with lead counsel and civil liberties expert Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, to highlight his father’s plight and the far-reaching implications of the case.
At a time when Press Freedom in Hong Kong has slipped from number 18 in the world to around 140 in the past two decades, and for the first time in its history the 28th edition of the Economic Freedom of the World saw Hong Kong drop from the number one spot, this is an important discussion of the encroachment on media, political and economic freedom in our region.
BIO: SEBASTIEN LAI
Sebastien Lai is Jimmy Lai’s son. Jimmy Lai is a renowned pro-democracy campaigner, media entrepreneur and writer, who founded Next Digital and Apple Daily, the popular independent Chinese language newspaper in Hong Kong which was forcibly shut down by the Hong Kong authorities in 2021. Jimmy Lai has been imprisoned in Hong Kong since December 2020, and now awaits trial which could lead to him spending the rest of his life behind bars.
Sebastien is leading the international #FreeJimmyLai campaign to secure his father’s release.
In December 2021 Sebastien accepted the award of the 2021 WAN-IFRA Golden Pen of Freedom on behalf of his father and the newsroom staff of Apple Daily Hong Kong. On receiving the award he said there will be “less and less people shining light in these dark corners” given Apple Daily’s shutdown and the ongoing crackdown on journalism in the region.
BIO: Jennifer Robinson
Jennifer Robinson is an award-winning barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London and a member of the international legal team for Jimmy Lai. She has acted in key human rights and media freedom cases in domestic and international courts. Her work has involved securing the freedom of arbitrarily detained journalists, protesters, human rights defenders and Australian citizens detained abroad in countries around the world. She advises media organisations and journalists on media freedom and journalist safety, with clients including the BBC World Service; the International Federation of Journalists and bereaved families of Palestinian journalists, including Shireen Abu Akleh; the bereaved family of assassinated Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia; and Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.
Jen sits on the boards of the Grata Fund, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights and the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at Oxford University. In 2022, she coauthored How Many More Women? Exposing how the law silences women, published by Allen & Unwin.
BIO: CAOILFHIONN GALLAGHER KC
Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC is a human rights lawyer. Over the past 25 years she has acted in many of the leading cases in the UK and before the European Court of Human Rights on a wide range of human rights issues, including acting for the bereaved families of the Hillsborough Disaster and the 7/7 London Bombings, for victims and survivors of abuse, in cases which overturned the previous total ban on access to abortion in Northern Ireland, and in a series of cases which have changed the law on the rights of children in custody.
Caoilfhionn's international work includes acting in many cases involving arbitrary detention: she has secured the freedom of imprisoned journalists, peaceful protestors, cartoonists and human rights defenders in countries worldwide. She is an expert in journalists' safety, and she leads the international legal teams for Hong Kong publisher and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai; for the bereaved family of assassinated Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia; and for Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize winning journalist in the Philippines.
Caoilfhionn is also a Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission; Ireland’s Special Rapporteur on Child Protection; and an Adjunct Full Professor at University College Dublin. In 2017 she was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts for her “outstanding commitment to enabling the Human Rights Act’s protections” for devising and founding a mass advertising campaign to tell positive human rights stories. In January 2024 she was awarded the President of Ireland’s Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad.
