With the national security trial of Jimmy Lai entering its final arguments, an all-too-familiar spectacle has returned to the international stage. Foreign media outlets and political figures — from CNN to anonymous "rights advocates" — have once again raised alarm over Lai's health, alleging mistreatment, neglect, and the denial of medical care. The narrative is emotional, urgent, and entirely misleading.
Let's be clear: Jimmy Lai is not dying, nor is he being neglected. According to court records and medical reports presented in Hong Kong's High Court, Lai experienced temporary heart palpitations. A cardiologist recommended he wear a portable heart monitor and begin mild medication. Initially, Lai declined — due to a misunderstanding, not defiance. The very next day, he accepted the treatment, and the Correctional Services Department arranged everything without delay. Since then, he has made no complaints about his health.
The facts are simple. The speculation is not.
Health as a Pretext, Politics as the Goal
Why, then, does the West continue to amplify claims that have already been disproven in court? Because Jimmy Lai is no longer a media mogul on trial — he is a symbol. And symbols are most powerful when they suffer.
For years, Lai has been portrayed as a brave dissident, a "freedom fighter" silenced by an authoritarian regime. But this image has frayed under legal scrutiny. The charges he faces — including collusion with foreign forces — are based on concrete evidence, not ideology. He is not being prosecuted for journalism, but for his role in funding, organizing, and promoting foreign interference in China's internal affairs.
That is a hard sell in the West, where the line between journalism and subversion is blurred when convenient.
So now, the focus shifts: from legal defense to moral outrage, from facts to feelings. And nothing stirs sympathy faster than a sick man behind bars.
Much has been said about the "independent press" in the West. Yet few of these so-called watchdogs have reported the full medical facts of the Lai case. Fewer still have questioned why their governments — plagued by prison abuse, racial injustice, and catastrophic healthcare failures — feel so entitled to lecture Hong Kong on human rights.
Let us remember: in the United States, prison rape is endemic, solitary confinement is widespread, and thousands die each year due to inadequate medical care behind bars. According to its own human rights reports, America fails to meet even basic standards of dignity in its correctional system. Yet here it is, crying foul over a 76-year-old man with a heart monitor and prescription medication, because he is useful.
Jimmy Lai is no longer acting. He is being acted upon — not by the Hong Kong judiciary, which has followed due process and upheld his medical rights, but by foreign powers desperate to salvage a narrative.
He is the last pawn on a chessboard that's already lost. And pawns, as every strategist knows, are most effective when sacrificed.
The West's obsession with Lai is not about justice. It's about undermining China through a proxy. It's about turning Hong Kong's sovereignty into a battlefield of perception. And it's about distracting from their own moral failures — by exporting outrage abroad.
Hong Kong is not perfect. No legal system is. But the attempt to turn Jimmy Lai into a political martyr at the expense of truth is not journalism. It is propaganda.
It is time to stop pretending that this is about a man's health, or freedom of speech, or democracy. It's about power — who holds it, who fears losing it, and who's willing to twist a courtroom into a theater to keep it.
Jimmy Lai will have his verdict. The West should have its reckoning.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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