Sebastien Lai

The heavy, very heavy sentence, you know, almost comically heavy sentence was expected.

Yeah, 20 years.

For his age, that's basically a life sentence.

I mean, by the time he gets out, if he does, he'll be 98.

Given the health conditions that he's in, and given the conditions that he's been kept in, I don't know if he could even serve one-tenth of that sentence.

His health has deteriorated massively over the last five years.

His nails are falling off.

He's got heart problems.

I mean, look, everybody knows someone around his age, late 70s, early 80s.

And if you put a man that age in a 60 square feet cell in solitary confinement the whole time,

Even if you did that for someone for 100 days, the likelihood of that person surviving is not high, and he's been in there for 1,800 days and more.

Yeah.

Yeah, unfortunately I do.

But there was a little moment that gave me some courage.

It was when the sentence was announced and a report from court said that he even managed to flash a smile, almost to tell his captors that he's still fighting, that even though they've shackled his body, attempt to break it, they have not shackled his soul.

And I think his spirit is only being made stronger by his persecution.

Yeah, he also would tell me the story of when he first landed into Hong Kong and he went to the markets and he had never seen so much food in his entire life.

So he broke down crying and he'd always say it's one of the best days of his life because in Hong Kong, even though he had nothing, he knew that at least he had freedom and that he had future.

And I actually always heard these stories through a very happy lens.

And it's only growing up that I realized how painful that period of his life would have been.