Today we woke up to the news that Jimmy Lai had been sentenced to 20 years in prison in his National Security case. Lai is 78 years old and has deteriorating health. It’s unlikely he will ever set foot outside the prison gates again.

We are appalled by the flagrant disregard for all due process in this case, and indeed the very premise of the case. The National Security Law, passed in 2020, was never about security and always about control, and this case was never about following the law and always about making an example of Lai – a pro-democracy activist and founder of now defunct Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily News – to scare everyone else into silence. If there was any residual hope that the city of Hong Kong still cared about justice and freedom this case has put paid to that.

We are heartbroken for Lai and his family. Since Lai’s arrest in 2020 we’ve come to know his son Sebastien, and are full of admiration for his resolve. It’s something we’ve also seen amongst his siblings and Lai’s wife Teresa. In 2022 we were proud to publish letters written by Lai from prison. The letters revealed that Lai – a devout Catholic – had managed to find comfort through his faith. We hope that his faith can still provide that, and our thoughts are with his family today.

We are fearful that Lai could be transferred to a prison in China itself, where the conditions could be that much worse and where contact with his family, legal counsel and the outside world would be much harder. Though it should be noted that the conditions in Hong Kong prisons have been deteriorating rapidly and Lai remains in solitary confinement.

We are disappointed by the British government, who could and should have pushed much harder on Lai’s release. From where we stand, Lai – a British citizen – has always felt like an afterthought, someone to be discussed quickly to say he had been raised, without a real thirst to change his outcome. In the wake of his sentencing, an expansion of the British National (Overseas) visa scheme has just been announced. This is a welcome move. However, it does nothing to get Lai out of jail.

Lai was not the only one sentenced. While their terms are shorter, eight others, most from Lai’s media company Apple Daily, will still spend many years in jail. It’s important to remember them too. They are Ryan Law, Lam Man-chung, Fung Wai-kong, Yeung Ching-kee, Chan Pui-man, Cheung Kim-hung, Andy Li and Chan Tsz-wah. Several testified against Lai in exchange for shorter sentences, and it’s believed they did so following extreme coercion.

The only positive is this: outside the court room, amid a heavy police presence, people still turned up to show their support for Lai and the Apple Daily team. One person even apparently carried an Apple Daily keychain, and was detained. We stand by these people who display extraordinary bravery. Like Lai, they are willing to risk their freedom to fight for what’s right and fair. The Hong Kong authorities have gone out of their way to crush dissent but they have not yet fully succeeded.

And finally, we stand by Jimmy Lai. The battle to secure freedom for this brave, principled man does not end today.