Irish barrister's family threatened amid Hong Kong pro-democracy legal work

UK-based King’s Counsel Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC said she received the threat via email.

An Irish barrister said she has received death threats via email and social media, which have extended to her family in recent months.

UK-based King’s Counsel Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, a civil rights barrister, said other members of her family have also been threatened with rape, “dismemberment” and death.

She believes the threats are linked to the work she and other barristers from the renowned Doughty Street Chambers in London are doing for one of Hong Kong's most influential pro-democracy figures, businessman Jimmy Lai.

Ms Gallagher and her colleagues have been the victims of a coordinated and concerted campaign of harassment since they started representing the 76-year-old, who is in jail for allegedly being involved in pro-democracy protests in 2019.

She said: “I had a threat to rape one of my children because of my work.

“I don’t know if that’s just an individual or if that’s someone who’s state-linked.

“What I do know is that if you have a campaign to say this lawyer is not to be trusted and they’re undermining the Chinese state by engaging in legal work with the United Nations, it sends a green light (to its supporters) to send material like that.”

Ms Gallagher, who runs Mr Lai’s international legal team, said hackers have tried to break into her bank accounts “hundreds” of times.

She has also been the subject of “privilege phishing,” which is a form of social engineering designed to get those targeted to reveal personal information that could then be used to hack into their email and social media accounts.

The information can also be used to hack into accounts for their utilities and any other personal accounts related to their lives.

She has also been the victim of attempts to impersonate her, including one in which her colleagues were told she had decided to resign from her position at Doughty Street Chambers because of the dangers she was facing while working on the Lai case.

In an interview with the London-based Guardian, she said: “I woke up in a hotel room to a whole load of messages saying: ‘Are you OK? What can I do?’.

“It is very difficult to deal with,” Ms Gallagher, who led the successful legal battle to release Dublin-based Ibrahim Halawa from an Egyptian jail and whose clients include survivors of the Hillsborough disaster, said.

“We think because of the coordination of the emails and the cyber-attacks and the fact that they coincide with key moments in the case, we’ve good reason to believe that they’re state linked.

“They are tactics which are designed to frighten us off doing our job or to make us worse at our jobs. And I think that’s why we’re redoubling our efforts.

“Because if they hate us – the lawyers – this much, think about how much they hate our client.”

Last May, Ms Gallagher – who has previously been targeted over other clients – warned people in Ireland would be the victims of violent attacks carried out by foreign state agents.

She said that there is a growing threat of violent “transnational repression.”