Carney under pressure from human-rights, prodemocracy groups to highlight Jimmy Lai’s case at G7

Mark Carney is being urged by 10 prodemocracy and human-rights groups in Canada to raise the plight of jailed Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai at the coming G7 summit in Alberta.

The Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China has written to the Prime Minister pressing him to join Britain, Australia and the United States in calling for Mr. Lai’s unconditional release from prison. The letter asks him “to work together with your G7 partners” to help secure the businessman’s freedom.

Earlier this week, senators and MPs from all parties called on the government to take action at the summit to help Mr. Lai.

The Prime Minister’s Office declined requests to comment on the case of Mr. Lai, publisher of the now-shuttered prodemocracy Apple Daily newspaper, who has been in solitary confinement for 4½ years.

He is on trial for violating a Beijing-imposed national-security law that critics say is emblematic of the erosion of rights and freedoms in the former British colony.

The British High Commission in Ottawa said in a statement that “British national Jimmy Lai’s case is a priority for the U.K. Government, and we are closely monitoring his trial.”

“Diplomats from our Consulate-General in Hong Kong have attended his court proceedings throughout, and we continue to press for consular access,” it said. “The U.K. continues to call on the Hong Kong authorities to end their politically motivated prosecution and immediately release Jimmy Lai.”

On Friday, human-rights advocates upped the pressure on Mr. Carney to highlight the case of Mr. Lai at the G7, where world leaders will gather in Alberta this weekend.

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Ketty Nivyabandi, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada’s English-speaking section, said “the G7 summit in Kananaskis offers Canada a critical opportunity to work with its closest allies to help free imprisoned prodemocracy activist Jimmy Lai and other human-rights defenders in Hong Kong who have been unjustly criminalized for their peaceful advocacy.”

“Three of Canada’s closest G7 partners have already called for Mr. Lai’s immediate, unconditional release,” she added.

Andy Wong, president of Canada-Hong Kong Link, a prodemocracy advocacy group, said he hoped Canada, as host of the G7, would raise Mr. Lai’s case with other democracies, and perhaps co-ordinate a joint statement calling for his release.

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He said that more than 1,000 people in Hong Kong have been imprisoned for voicing dissent about the actions of China’s Communist regime, or expressing prodemocracy sentiments, including on social media while abroad.

Among those who has been jailed is Chow Hang-tung, a human-rights lawyer, imprisoned in Hong Kong in 2021 for organizing vigils to commemorate the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. She is facing up to 10 years in prison under the national-security law

Canada-Hong Kong Link, Toronto Hong Kong Parent Group and Vancouver Society in Support of Democratic Movement issued a joint statement on Friday calling for “Canadian leadership at the upcoming G7 summit.” It praised MPs for supporting a proposed motion to grant Mr. Lai honorary citizenship by unanimous consent.

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MPs have expressed dismay that the government suddenly blocked a House motion to award him honorary citizenship this week.

Steven MacKinnon, the Government House Leader, told Liberal MP Judy Sgro on Wednesday that she could not press ahead with it.

She said she is “pretty disappointed” that the government blocked the unanimous-consent motion just before she was set to present it.

She told The Globe and Mail that she is seeking other avenues to put honorary citizenship for the Hong Kong businessman to a vote before MPs go on their summer break. She said the motion addressed a “humanitarian issue” as Mr. Lai is 77, in solitary confinement and suffering from diabetes.

“I’m still trying to investigate if there’s some other way, or some other opportunity to advance this,” she said.

The Government House Leader’s Office said in a statement on Thursday that a unanimous-consent motion was not the right vehicle to discuss foreign-policy matters. “We do not believe that serious and substantive foreign-policy issues should be decided without any debate,” it added.

But Brandon Silver, director of policy and programs at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, said there has already been much debate on Mr. Lai’s incarceration in Hong Kong, which had been mentioned in Parliament around 100 times.

Two hearings were held in February, 2024, for example, at the subcommittee on international human rights about his plight.

“This case has already been debated extensively, resulting in unanimous-consent motions calling for his release in December 2023,” he said. “Parliament has spoken in a single voice on this issue: the government should stand up and speak out for Jimmy Lai.”