Former Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai, who became an outspoken advocate for human rights and personal freedoms in communist China, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison by Xi Jinping’s regime. Experts say that world leaders must demand the release of Lai, who has become the face of the struggle for human rights in China.

On Monday, a Hong Kong court sentenced Lai to 20 years in prison after a trial that has lasted since 2020, accusing him of publishing “seditious” articles and violating Hong Kong’s “national security” law, which criminalized the exercise of free speech in opposition to China’s communist regime. The sentence is the longest ever imposed under the Hong Kong law, which elicited two million people to flood the streets of Hong Kong in 2019-2020 in protest. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) quashed the protests by arresting at least 10,000 people and prosecuting over 2,900.

With the sentence, Lai, who is 78 and suffering from several chronic health conditions, will likely die in prison unless he is released. As noted by Lai biographer Mark L. Clifford, over the last five years, Lai “has spent most of his time … in solitary confinement, in a windowless cell, in continuing violation of United Nations principles and international human rights standards.” Clifford further observed that the CCP has “dragged out Lai’s legal ordeal to make it as painful as possible,” with a “grueling 156-day trial stretched over two years” in which “he endured 52 days on the witness stand.” The authorities also “denied Lai his right to a trial by jury” and “wouldn’t even let him choose his own lawyer. Both are constitutionally guaranteed.”

A Catholic, Lai has reportedly “found meaning in the hardship of prison and spends time reading the Bible and other religious works and drawing pictures of the cross.”

Hong Kong and human rights advocates like Elisha Maldonado say that the free world cannot allow China to get away with forever silencing such a well-known freedom fighter as Lai. “With this sentence, the world is witnessing the silencing of one of Hong Kong’s most courageous voices for freedom,” she wrote in National Review Monday. “This isn’t just a personal tragedy for those who know and love Lai. It’s a signal to dissidents everywhere that even the most visible advocates can be shut up permanently.”

Maldonado further argued that if “the U.S. allows Lai’s sentencing to pass without serious diplomatic leverage or legislative consequence, it will embolden authoritarian governments everywhere to double down on repression. But if the United States seizes this moment — tying human rights outcomes to trade, diplomacy, and legal accountability — it can still be a force for defending the oppressed.”

Maldonado and Clifford say that world leaders like U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer have a particular responsibility to pressure China to free Lai, since he is a British citizen. Starmer apparently spoke with Xi about Lai during his visit to China last month, soon after Starmer’s government approved the construction of a sprawling new Chinese embassy in the middle of London that has sparked controversy over espionage fears. “Starmer needs to keep up the pressure, making it emphatically clear that there is a cost for continuing to hold Lai, starting with getting the go-ahead for the state visit to Britain that Xi wants,” Clifford contended. “China has denied British officials legally required consular access for Lai. Starmer should make prison meetings with Lai a condition of future ministerial visits.”

Clifford went on to emphasize that President Donald Trump should make “Lai’s freedom a condition of his upcoming April visit to Beijing.” Trump remarked in December that he did, in fact, discuss Lai with Xi. “I feel so badly,” he related. “I spoke to President Xi about it, and I asked [him] to consider his release. He’s not well. He’s an older man and he’s not well, so I did put that request out. We’ll see what happens.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also spoke out against Lai’s sentencing Monday, saying in statement, “The Hong Kong High Court’s decision to sentence Jimmy Lai to 20 years is an unjust and tragic conclusion to this case. It shows the world that Beijing will go to extraordinary lengths to silence those who advocate fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong, casting aside the international commitments Beijing made in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration.” He went on to urge Hong Kong’s authorities to “grant Mr. Lai humanitarian parole.”

Arielle Del Turco, who serves as director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council, expressed alarm over Lai’s sentencing.

“A 79-year-old pro-democracy advocate will spend the rest of his life in a Chinese jail, all because the CCP couldn’t stand the freedom found in Hong Kong and the exercise of free speech by people like Jimmy Lai,” she told The Washington Stand. “Lai’s sentencing is a grave threat to any Hong Kongers looking to advocate for democracy after the CCP’s takeover of Hong Kong. It’s an ongoing tragedy to watch a semi-autonomous city that once enjoyed some semblance of freedom and human rights now succumb to the stifling authoritarianism of the CCP.”

“It seems unlikely that the Chinese government would free Jimmy Lair after painting him as an enemy of the State for so long,” Del Turco concluded. “However, I’m encouraged by Marco Rubio’s plea to release Lai and grant him humanitarian parole. If only for the sake of their international image, the Chinese government should do that immediately.”