Special Rapporteur on Torture Alice Jill Edwards said in a statement released Wednesday that a key witness in Jimmy Lai’s indictment was forced to provide evidence during his detention at China’s Shenzhen Prison in 2020. 2021.
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Evidence against Hong Kong pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai was obtained under torture, an independent UN expert said on Wednesday (January 31). The charges against the founder of the popular tabloid Apple Daily, now shuttered, are linked to articles in the newspaper that supported pro-democracy protests and criticized Beijing’s leaders. He now faces life imprisonment for endangering national security.
In a statement, the Special Rapporteur on torture, Alice Jill Edwards, specifies that a key witness in the indictment of Jimmy Lai was forced to provide evidence during his detention in China’s Shenzhen prison in 2020-2021 . The expert is mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, but does not speak on behalf of the organization.
Special Rapporteur on torture “deeply concerned”
She said to herself “deeply concerned” and calls for an investigation into these allegations to be “carried out immediately, before any evidence is admitted into the ongoing proceedings.. “Article 15 of the Convention Against Torture – which China has ratified – states that any statement obtained through torture cannot be used as evidence in proceedings”she recalls.
Jimmy Lai’s trial is seen as a barometer of political freedoms and judicial independence in the former British colony. The co-founder of the former Apple Daily newspaper is being prosecuted for the media’s publication of articles that criticized Beijing and supported pro-democracy protests in 2020.
