Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Jimmy Lai has been held in maximum solitary confinement in a security prison in Hong Kong for almost four years. This is inhumane: He is being tried on trumped-up charges arising from his peaceful promotion of democracy, his journalism and his human rights advocacy. His trial, like so many in Hong Kong since the passage of the authoritarian national security law, lacked procedural and judicial fairness, with hand-picked judges and evidence obtained via torture. The Hong Kong and Chinese authorities have repeatedly delayed his trial, compromising his right to a speedy trial. His release has been called for by the UK government, by the US government, by the Canadian parliament, by the European Parliament and by five UN special rapporteurs, and today many in this place join that call. We are united in our call that Mr Lai may return home to the UK before it is too late. These calls are supported by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which on Friday 15 November published its opinion that Jimmy Lai is unlawfully and arbitrarily detained and called for his immediate release. The working group found multiple violations of Mr Lai's rights and freedoms and stressed that he should not be on trial at all.

The world is watching as the rule of law, media freedom and human rights in Hong Kong are eroded and undermined. We must work together to uphold these fundamental freedoms and demand that Jimmy Lai be released and immediately and unconditionally allowed to return home. We are seeing a global trend to silence journalists and those speaking truth to power. We must work together to call out for those wrongfully and arbitrarily detained wherever they are and whichever group or government is holding them. Today, the Australian Greens add our voices to the calls for the release of Jimmy Lai, just as we did with Julian Assange and Cheng Lei and just as we do with Robert Pether in Iraq and with Daniel Duggan, who is wrongfully detained here in Australia.