Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

Last month, Sebastien Lai addressed the UN Human Rights Council. He spoke as a press freedom advocate and as a son. Sebastien’s father, publisher and journalist Jimmy Lai, has been jailed in Hong Kong for 4.5 years. Drawing attention to his case – at 77, Lai is facing life imprisonment – Sebastien noted that China’s special administrative region used to be “a bastion of rights and freedoms.”

Those listening might have needed a reminder. This Monday marked five years since Beijing imposed the National Security Law in Hong Kong. The region’s 2020-25 is a record of erasure: freedoms of expression, association, and assembly, rights to free and fair elections, fair trial, and independent courts are gone. Almost all civil society groups, labor unions, and political parties ceased to exist. A dozen independent media closed down. It is “death by a thousand cuts,” Jemimah Steinfeld wrote for Index on Censorship.

This week’s cases point to the dismantling of Hong Kong’s democracy. In one decision, the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal upheld a broad statutory definition of sedition. In another, the Court ruled on the disclosure of sensitive information by “foreign agents”: granting a technical legal victory for civil liberties, the decision stayed firmly within the constraints of the National Security Law. In Jimmy Lai’s case, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that his deprivation of liberty lacked a valid legal basis.

Last fall, CGFoE hosted a webinar on one of Hong Kong’s most striking legal battles – over the banned protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong.” “The threshold of sedition has changed,” digital rights activist Chung Ching Kwong told our audience, stressing that the future of Hong Kong’s digital space hung on tech platforms, global stakeholders, and their balancing act: comply with Hong Kong’s injunctions or preserve tech neutrality? Companies have more leverage than they want to admit.

Vowing to defy tyranny, exiled Hong Kong journalists and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) recently revived Apple Daily. Their special edition marks another grave date: four years since the forced closure of Hong Kong’s most prominent and outspoken newspaper – Jimmy Lai’s legacy. “You meet Jimmy where democracy is,” RSF’s Director General Thibaut Bruttin recalled finding Lai in a tent in Hong Kong’s Central District during the Umbrella Movement in 2014.

“Today, Hong Kong’s democracy is in prison,” Bruttin wrote, “and so is Jimmy Lai.”

Image credit: Reporters Without Borders

Hong Kong
HKSAR v. Tam Tak Chi (II)
Decision Date: March 6, 2025
The Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal held that sedition offenses under section 10(1)(b) of the Crimes Ordinance do not require proof of an intention to incite violence or public disorder. The appellant, Tam Tak Chi, was convicted of seven seditious speech offenses, such as inciting and organizing unauthorized assemblies and criticizing the government, the National Security Law (NSL), and the Chinese Communist Party, committed between January and July 2020. The Court rejected Tam’s jurisdictional challenge and affirmed that sedition in Hong Kong has been governed by statute since 1938. It concluded that the legislative history and plain language of the law establish multiple alternative forms of seditious intention, any one of which suffices for conviction without the need to prove intent to incite violence.

HKSAR v. Tang Ngok Kwan and Others
Decision Date: March 6, 2025
The Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal held that when prosecuting offenses under Schedule 5 Section 3(3)(b) of the Implementation Rules of the National Security Law, the prosecution must prove that the organization was actually a “foreign agent” as defined in law, not merely that the Commissioner of Police had reasonable grounds to believe so. The case involved three appellants – Tang Ngok Kwan, Tsui Hon Kwong, and Chow Hang Tung – who were committee members and vice-chairperson of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, who had refused to comply with police notices demanding extensive organizational information dating back to 1989. The Court determined that the appellants were entitled to challenge the validity of the notices as part of their criminal defense, rejecting lower courts’ view that such challenges could only be made through judicial review. While not decisive to the case’s outcome, the Court also found that notices could validly require production of information predating the National Security Law’s enactment, provided the Commissioner reasonably believed such information was necessary for national security purposes.

United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
The Case of Mr. Jimmy Lai Chee-ying (Hong Kong, China)
Decision Date: September 26, 2024
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) held that the solitary detention of Jimmy Lai by Hong Kong authorities was arbitrary and in violation of international human rights, particularly the right to freedom of expression under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Jimmy Lai, a prominent pro-democracy advocate and founder of Apple Daily, was detained for over three years and prosecuted under Hong Kong’s National Security Law (NSL) – and other charges arising from his peaceful participation in protests, political commentary, and media work. The Working Group observed that his detention lacked a valid legal basis, punished him for exercising his rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, denied him a fair trial due to political interference, and amounted to discrimination based on political opinion. The UNWGAD criticized the vague and overbroad provisions of the NSL, the reversal of the presumption of bail, and the use of criminal law to suppress legitimate dissent. Concluding that Jimmy Lai’s deprivation of liberty was an arbitrary detention, the Working Group called for his immediate and unconditional release, reparations, and urgent legal reforms to align Hong Kong’s laws with international human rights obligations.

● Hong Kong: Last Major Pro-Democracy Party Announces Dissolution, by Alex Kwok. The JURIST reports that the League of Social Democrats (LSD), Hong Kong’s last working pro-democracy party, will disband. Its Chairperson, Chan Po-ying, explained that the decision was made due to “immense political pressure.” In a statement, Po-ying said, “We have endured internal conflicts, the near-total imprisonment of our leadership, and the erosion of civil society. Red lines are omnipresent, and dissent faces draconian suppression.” The party has been known for defending the rights of minorities, organizing protests, and challenging the government in court. The JURIST cites the spokesperson for Amnesty Hong Kong Overseas Section, who disclosed that “surveillance, harassment, fines, and intimidation” have been targeting LSD’s members.

● Türkiye: Statement Following Arrests of LeMan Magazine Staff. Reporters Without Borders, Cartooning for Peace, and Cartoonists Rights decry the arrests of LeMan magazine staff members in Istanbul and urge the Turkish authorities to release them, ensuring the safety of the entire LeMan team. After the opposition satirical magazine released its latest issue last week, a dozen individuals and the police raided its offices; the city prosecutor’s office started an investigation, alleging that one of the issue’s cartoons represented the Prophet Muhammad – a depiction that is impermissible in Islam. Four staff members, including the cartoonist, have been jailed for “inciting hatred,” and arrest warrants have been issued to LeMan’s co-founder and editor-in-chief. The magazine maintains that the cartoon is not a depiction of the Prophet. ​​“The cartoonist wanted to portray the righteousness of the oppressed Muslim people by depicting a Muslim killed by Israel, and he never intended to insult religious values,” LeMan said in a statement.

● Egypt: Rights Organizations Call for the End of Transnational Repression against Exiled Journalist Basma Mostafa. 26 human rights organizations – ARTICLE 19 and Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies among them – jointly demand that the Egyptian government stop its campaign of transnational repression against journalists in exile. Citing a report by UN Special Rapporteurs, including Irene Khan, Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, the organizations advocate for the protection of Egyptian investigative journalist Basma Mostafa. Although working from exile, Mostafa is not safe: she has experienced “threats, surveillance, harassment, and online gender-based violence”; the attacks on her bear links to the Egyptian authorities. The joint statement stresses that there are more cases like Mostafa’s: when it comes to transnational repression, Egypt is one of the world’s worst perpetrators.

This section of the newsletter features teaching materials focused on global freedom of expression which are newly uploaded on Freedom of Expression Without Frontiers

● “The State Can Lock Up People, But Not Their Thinking”: How Hong Kong’s National Security Law Undermined Human Rights in Five Years. This briefing paper, released by Amnesty International, outlines why, five years after the imposition of the National Security Law (NSL), renewed global advocacy is urgently needed to bring to justice those responsible for widespread rights violations in Hong Kong. The research examines patterns in arrests and prosecutions under the NSL framework, showing the drastic erosion of the main legal safeguards. The key findings are alarming: 1) in 85% of the analyzed cases, legitimate expression was on trial; 2) in 89% of the national security cases, the courts denied bail; and 3) over the past five years, the length of pre-trial detention averaged 11 months. “[T]he authorities are deploying vague and overly broad legal provisions to target opposition voices and dismantle civil society,” the briefing concluded.

● Digital Rights Venezuela 2024, by Manuel Virguez and Yasmin Faneite. The report, published by the Digital Human Rights Monitor of the Movimiento Vinotinto Civil Association in December 2024, explains how Venezuela’s political and social crisis undermines the exercise of fundamental rights in digital environments. Written by Manuel Virguez and Yasmin Faneite of Movimiento Vinotinto, the study documents the state of digital rights in Venezuela over the past year by focusing on freedom of expression online, institutional cyberviolence, and access to information. The methods used to compile the report included a review of documents (laws, doctrines, and opinions of international organizations), surveys of Internet users, and in-depth interviews with human rights defenders, activists, and tech specialists who have been directly affected by the state’s digital repression.

Call for Applications: 2026 Waging Justice for Women Fellowship. The fellowship, a project of the Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ), seeks to promote gender justice for women and girls across Africa and invites applications for the 2026 round. CFJ will select ten early-career women lawyers in sub-Saharan Africa, granting them a fully-funded opportunity to work with prominent human rights organizations in the region for a year. The deadline to apply is August 4, 2025, at 11 PM SAST. Would you like to know more? Read about the eligibility criteria and apply here.

This newsletter is reproduced with the permission of Global Freedom of Expression.  For an archive of previous newsletters, see here.