A Chinese diplomat interrupted remarks by Sebastien Lai, son of Hong Kong political prisoner Jimmy Lai, and his legal team during a U.N. Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva today.
The Chinese government regularly instructs its officials to derail speeches and appearances by Beijing’s political opponents at the U.N., leaning on both its official diplomatic corps and a network of Chinese-government-backed organizations. The case of Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy media magnate, imprisoned under the Beijing-imposed 2020 national-security law, is particularly sensitive for the Chinese government.
Sebastien Lai was speaking on behalf of PEN International at a session featuring U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Assembly and of Association Clément Nyaletsossi Voule. Shortly after the beginning of his remarks, as he was explaining his father’s case, a Chinese diplomat interrupted him and appealed to the council’s president to cut Lai’s speech short.
The Chinese official accused Lai of “using the platform to exaggerate” his father’s situation.
The council president, however, denied China’s request to stop Lai’s speech, saying that the case is relevant to the topic of the debate.
“The China and Hong Kong SAR government tried to silence my dad by throwing him in jail. But that silence is deafening,” Lai said during his speech.
Later on in the meeting, a lawyer for Lai, Tatyana Eatwell, addressed the council and was also interrupted.
VIDEO: China interrupted #JimmyLai's son Sebastien Lai & its legal team member @TatyanaEatwell at the 53rd Session of the @UNHumanRights Council w/ Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association today as they raise the case of his father. pic.twitter.com/RkYqbLVIaj
— Frances Hui 許穎婷 (@frances_hui) June 30, 2023
“China’s conduct at the Human Rights Council in Geneva today shows they will stop at nothing to silence criticism. They will even interrupt a son speaking out for his father. A lawyer speaking out for her client,” said Caoilfhionn Gallagher, the head of Lai’s international legal team, in a statement.
Beijing has stepped up its U.N. pressure campaign regarding Hong Kong recently. A pro–Chinese Communist Party association called the International Pro Bono Legal Services Association, led by Hong Kong legislator Junius Ho, won special consultative status at the U.N.’s Economic and Social Council in late 2022, according to a recent report by Radio Canada. Ho’s group runs an advocacy center that calls on Hong Kong to implement its own version of China’s national-security law, thus intensifying the crackdown that began in 2020.
Some U.N. experts, meanwhile, in a statement to China this year, have spoken out against the erosion of political freedoms in the city and expressed “grave concerns” about Lai’s detention.