Lai, the founder of the now-shuttered popular Chinese-language tabloid Apple Daily which supported mass pro-democracy protests, was detained in 2020 and is standing trial on charges including sedition and colluding with foreign forces.
At a press event held by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, his son said Lai, 76, was struggling in solitary confinement inside a cell that is 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit).
"Make no mistake -- they are killing him because of his commitment to democracy," Sebastian Lai said.
"My dad is also someone who is living out the duty of the free -- the duty to fight and protect freedom whenever and wherever it is being threatened," he said.
"I call on those who understand the same duty to act now and to save him before it's too late," he said.
Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi told him, "Sebastian, your father is a hero to us."
Pelosi said authoritarian states hope to convince prisoners that they are forgotten.
"We are saying to the world, to the Chinese government, to the Chinese Communist Party, that we know -- not only do we remember, we exalt, we lift up, the sacrifice of Jimmy Lai," Pelosi said.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin, calling Lai a symbol of the "vibrant, free community" that Hong Kong once was, vowed to keep a spotlight to free Lai as well as less prominent people detained under a harsh new security law in Hong Kong.
Lai pleaded not guilty in the trial that began in January. He faces charges that could carry life imprisonment.
Prosecutors have sought to make a case against him by showing his media appearances and have named former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo among his foreign contacts and "agents."
China promised a separate system for Hong Kong before the financial hub's handover by Britain in 1997 but clamped down hard after the massive and occasionally violent pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Hong Kong jails third person for sedition under new law
Hong Kong (AFP) Sept 20, 2024 -
A Hong Kong man was jailed Friday for "seditious" posts on social media, becoming the third person to be imprisoned under a new national security law in the span of two days.
Au Kin-wai, 58, was sentenced to 14 months behind bars after he pleaded guilty to publishing 239 seditious posts on the platforms Facebook, YouTube and X, according to a court document.
Chief Magistrate Victor So said Au's posts were a "clear challenge to national sovereignty" and that his calls to revolution threatened national security.
While sedition has been an offence in Hong Kong since the British colonial period, it was rarely used until authorities revived it in the wake of huge, sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019.
After Beijing imposed a national security law on the finance hub in 2020 to quell the protests, Hong Kong in March passed a second, tougher security law colloquially known as "Article 23", which expanded the sedition offence.
In his posts, Au had called for Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Hong Kong leader John Lee to resign, and derided the Chinese Communist Party as being "synonymous with lies", according to media reports.
"(Au) intended to bring others into hatred and contempt against the Hong Kong government and law enforcement agencies, resulting in social rift and division," magistrate So wrote in his ruling.
So -- who is among the judges handpicked by Hong Kong's leader to try national security cases -- was also responsible for the two sedition jailings on Thursday.
The defence had argued that some of Au's social media accounts had fewer than 20 followers and that the unemployed man was seeking validation instead of trying to incite anyone.
Under Article 23, the maximum jail term for sedition was upped from two years to seven.
The offence was also revamped to cover inciting hatred against China's Communist leadership and socialist system.
Thursday's sedition jailings -- which saw one man get 14 months for wearing a T-shirt with protest slogans -- were condemned by Amnesty International's China director Sarah Brooks as "a blatant attack on the right to freedom of expression".
Aside from sedition, Article 23 also punishes five other categories of crime: treason, insurrection, sabotage, espionage and external interference.
Hong Kong officials have defended the law as necessary to fulfil a "constitutional responsibility", but Western critics say it will further curtail liberties in the city.
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