April 2, 2025 – The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation welcomes and endorses the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize nomination of Hong Kong pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai alongside several Chinese human rights defenders by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC).  

Yesterday, the two Congressmen released a letter nominating five champions of human rights, peace, and freedom in China and Hong Kong for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. They are Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti, ethnic Mongol activist Hada, Chinese Protestant pastor Wang Yi, journalist Sophia Huang Xueqin, and British entrepreneur and democracy advocate Jimmy Lai. All of them are arbitrarily detained by China, serving long sentences for exercising rights guaranteed by international law.  

All the nominees have stood up to egregious violations of human rights by the People’s Republic of China, including mass internment camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Uyghur Region); the often brutal dismantling of networks of human rights lawyers seeking legal and political reforms in China; and the imposition of the National Security Law (NSL) in Hong Kong that has led to the unjust detention of over 1,000 people.   

Jimmy Lai is the founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper who has been imprisoned since 2020 on politically motivated charges. As the CECC letter indicates, his arrest along with that of two of his sons and newspaper colleagues were part of Hong Kong government efforts to suppress press freedom and intimidate pro-democracy advocates. He has since been kept for prolonged periods in solitary confinement and denied the right to counsel of his choosing or independent medical care.  

“Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to these individuals, who have stood up for the rights of others at great personal cost to themselves and their families, would send a signal that the desire for peace and freedom of those living under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party is no different than that expressed by billions of other people around the world,” Rep. Smith and Sen. Merkley wrote in the letter.   

Legislators and academics around the world have been raising profiles of the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement in the Nobel Peace Prize nomination since 2018. In 2018, 12 members of the CECC nominated the entire pro-democracy Umbrella Movement and the movement leaders, Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, and Alex Chow for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize. During Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy movement, Norwegian lawmaker Guri Melby nominated the people of Hong Kong who “risk their lives and security every day to stand up for freedom of speech and basic democracy” for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize. In 2023, the CECC nominated six individuals who have been “ardent champions of Hong Kong’s autonomy, human rights, and the rule of law” for the Nobel Peace Prize, including Joshua Wong, Tonyee Chow Hang-tung, and Cardinal Joseph Zen. Last year, the Global Scholars for Hong Kong, representing 15 China-focused academics from multiple countries, also nominated five of these six individuals. 

CFHK Foundation President Mark Clifford said: 

“All five nominated human rights defenders who are unjustly imprisoned for daring to tell the truth and stand up to tyranny deserve to be celebrated. We call on the Nobel Peace Prize Committee and the international community to recognize the bravery and sacrifice of Jimmy Lai as the face of Hong Kong people’s fight in resisting Chinese authoritarian rule.”