- cross-posted to:
- hongkong
- cross-posted to:
- hongkong
You must log in or register to comment.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Unlike most other inmates, who play football or exercise in groups, Lai walks alone in what appears to be a 5-by-10-meter (16-by-30-foot) enclosure surrounded by barbed wire under Hong Kong’s punishing summer sun before returning to his unairconditioned cell in the prison.
The publisher of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, Lai disappeared from public view in December 2020 following his arrest under a security law imposed by Beijing to crush a massive pro-democracy movement that started in 2019 and brought hundreds of thousands onto the streets.
In a separate case, an appeals court is due to rule Monday on a challenge that Lai and six other activists have had filed against their conviction and sentencing on charges of organizing and taking part in an unauthorized assembly nearly four years ago.
He was scheduled to go on trial last December, but it was postponed to September while the Hong Kong government appealed to Beijing to block his attempt to hire a British defense lawyer.
“My father is in prison because he spoke truth to power for decades,” Lai’s son, Sebastien, said in a May statement to a U.S. government panel, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
Lai, who suffers from diabetes and was diagnosed with high blood pressure in 2021 while in detention, is treated as a Category A prisoner, a status for inmates who have committed the most serious crimes such as murder.
The original article contains 589 words, the summary contains 232 words. Saved 61%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Back to your point about abuse, though,
… except you don’t. Trial by jury is a decent system that decouples justice from political power. In this case, the politicians decided that was an inconvenience and did away with it.
What we should be worried about it is actual abuses, not potential abuses.
Agreed. This was an actual abuse.
Define democracy.
How would you define it?
Governance according to the will and best interest of the people. But my definition isn’t very interesting since I’m not the subject of this article. What makes Jimmy Lai pro-democracy? What does democracy mean when AP writes it?
Don’t knock your importance. Your definition is very interesting.
“Best interest of the people” can be very subjective. How is the will of the people determined? Is that through voting directly or through a representative they voted for?
As for what AP likely means: most likely either direct or respresentative democracy whereby the general public votes either directly on legislation or votes for a representative to vote on legislation for them.
Voting is just a component of some democratic systems. There’s a lot more you have to consider. For example, imagine you have a system where people vote for their representatives but the media is owned by the wealthy and political parties depend on wealthy donors for funding. In that case policy will not reflect the interests of the people but instead the interests of a wealthy minority. I imagine that’s the kind of “democracy” the AP is referring to when they describe Jimmy Lai as pro-democracy.
There is no democracy without the general public voting. It is a component of ALL democratic systems.
What evidence do you have that your scenario is what AP means when they refer to democracy?
It’s a fair description of the system the British set up in Hong Kong right before they had to hand it back to China. It’s the same system that “pro-democracy” advocates in Hong Kong were defending. As such I think it’s reasonable to assume that’s what the AP and Jimmy Lai are referring to.
As for voting I’m not saying it isn’t a useful mechanism through which the general will of a population can be expressed. Instead, I am saying that voting alone is not the crux upon which democracy hinges. I personally prefer voting as a mechanism over sortition and consensus in most cases. However, that wouldn’t mean either of those mechanisms couldn’t be the basis for democratic decision making.
What is the context behind this?
2019 HK protests and CCP’s crackdown on its free press.
I know that, what did this guy actually do?
The case against him is for collusion with foreign forces to undermine national security.
That is a very different thing from simply being “pro democracy”, they charged rioters in the US with this excuse and they were also calling themselves pro democracy.
Still can’t find a clear answer to my question on Google, smells weird to me.
It’s difficult to find information on Google because vague terms like “pro-democracy” are used leaving the readers to imagine what it means.
I got what I told you from this Reuters article: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/national-security-trial-hong-kong-pro-democracy-tycoon-postponed-next-sept-2022-12-13/
vague terms like “pro-democracy” are used leaving the readers to imagine what it means.
That’s precisely why I’m curious for more details on this. This can either be an attack on democracy or just curbing extremists.
The fact I can find nothing in a language I can understand about his actual crimes is suspicious to me because that piece of information changes everything.
If you’re pro-democracy in an authoritarian state you kind of have to collude with foreign democracies.
Being pro democracy is as vague as it gets. What was he actually fighting for or against?
This article explains what Hong Kong Democracy advocates were calling for before they were put down by the government
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/13/what-do-the-hong-kong-protesters-want
Are you a broken record or what.
With limited information, knowing what we know about the Chinese government, I know I sure ain’t giving them the benefit of the doubt here
Edit: interesting to see which way this sentiment swings the votes here
It’s in the headline: “pro-democracy publisher”.
He was a newspaper publisher in Hong Kong who refused to get in line. That’s all.
What did he actually do though?
Literally ran a newspaper which espoused democracy and independent governance (Hong Kong status quo at the time).
You might also be interested to learn that democratically elected legislators in Hong Kong were arrested en masse from the floor of their legislative building for the exact same reason. It’s as bad as it sounds.
Link me that information from any source that actually reports on it fully. I’m just trying to understand what actually happened there.
He published newspapers. He was a newspaper publisher.
There’s no free speech in China. Publishing a newspaper that doesn’t follow the line of the Chinese Communist Party is a crime, and after the CCP took control over Hong Kong that applied to him as well.
You could get arrested (rightfully and not) in most of the world for publishing a myriad of things while still calling yourself “pro democracy” (see jan. 6 protests in the US)
I just wanted to know what he was actually saying to motivate this arrest…
The Jan 6 people were not arrested for publishing a newspaper.
The arrest itself was actually “motivated” by what they referred to as unauthorised assembly during the pro-democracy protests. This 73 year old man went somewhere he shouldn’t have, and clearly threatened the mighty CCP enough to warrant 20 months in prison in the process. Additional charges up to life are being stacked on top following from the “security law” meant to silence pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong, but as far as I know these charges have not been made public. His newspaper was published daily though, so the nature of his crime was quite public if you’re really interested.
Here’s a BBC story on the history of the newspaper.
I’m sorry I couldn’t find anything published by Xinhua News Agency, I have a feeling you might have appreciated that more.
He was accused of collaborating with foreign actors.
That IS illegal.
We will never know the details of the charges, because all the legal proceedings will be secret, which is the standard in China.
Someone below posted the charges btw.
Not seeing any evidence of public court proceedings in this thread.
He ran a prominen newspaper called Daily Apple, which was shut down by the government.
Did not kiss Winnie the Pooh’s ass.
Do not kiss Uncle Sam’s ass. I’m not about to believe anything based on hearsay.
Looks like he’s in prison for 2 years on shakey, but mostly self acknowledged fraud charges, and also facing new charges detailed in another comment below.
Free Julian Assange! ✊
Free beer! 🍺
Free Kevin!
For his lopsided free speech, yes. For the rapey stuff? Not so much.
In May, a court rejected Lai’s bid to halt his security trial on grounds that it was being heard by judges picked by Hong Kong’s leader. That is a departure from the common law tradition China promised to preserve for 50 years after the former British colony returned to China in 1997.
Don’t tell me that British laws are actually that corrupt. No way, right?
It’s a departure from the common law tradition. Furthermore common law is a completely different concept from British laws.
I’m not sure I understand your question.
You’re replying to a tankie.
Just the usual knewjerk reaction to defend China.
Yeah, I noticed the instance only after I had already responded. Oh well, that solves the mystery of the questionable reading comprehension.
Hong Kong’s common law tradition is entirely a colonialist imposition. Worse, common law doesn’t apply to modern national security regimes. The US is a common law nation, but it has secret courts, enemy combatants designations, secret evidence, secret charges, and the federal court system has significant departures.
The idea that a national security proceeding in China should be constrained by thousand-year old precedent set in England is not just ridiculous it is a particular kind of white imperialist ridiculous.
Do you think that having the political leader hand pick a panel judges to try someone and do away with jury trial is a good idea then? Particularly when the defendant has a history of annoying said political leader? You don’t think it might be rather open to abuse?
Abuse. Abuse. You are worried about abuse? How about the occupation of Hong Kong, the attempt to extend occupation, and then, upon determining that the occupation could not be extended, doing everything in your power to create strife, division, conditions for counter-revolution and secessionary movements, and maintaining as much political and economic influence over the territory as possible?
Do you think that might be open to abuse? How would you solve that problem? What sorts of solutions exist in the imperial world for resolving this sort of problem?
What you don’t seem to grasp is that One Country, Two Systems entails One National Defense. Collaboration with Western imperialists who have subjugated China for centuries is going to be handled by the One Country, not the Two Systems. Unlike the imperial holdings of the West, however, Hong Kong is actually democratically integrated into China. Ask Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, etc how democracy is working out for them?
You also aren’t actually analyzing the bureaucratic workings of China’s legal system and aren’t steeped in their history, traditions, and precedent. You are reading a Western spin on what’s actually happening. You can’t read Chinese, so you can’t read Chinese law. You can’t actually engage with Chinese events at the same level of detail and analysis that you can of English, American, Canadian, and Australian events. So, forgive me if I don’t find your arguments compelling, since they amount to accusing Xi of being an autocrat in what is demonstrably a democratic institution operating a rules-based bureaucratic system that has a decade-long 95% national approval while simultaneously operating the most complex multi-ethnic country in the history of the world including autonomous regions wherein ethnic nations experience a greater degree of cultural self-expression and self-governance than anything the West has ever produced. Clearly, if China worked the way you think it does Xi would be calling all the shots and people would be discontent and the governing of 1.4 billion people of 57 ethnicities would be coming apart at the seams. Instead we see that it is France, UK, and USA that is falling apart dealing with far fewer people and with far less ethnic diversity and with far less ethnic autonomy. Something in your analysis is fundamentally flawed.
Back to your point about abuse, though, should you be worried about abuse of power in China? Is that where your energy should be going? Does China operate 600 military bases globally? Does China operate extrajudicial torture chambers all over the world? Does China launch new wars of aggression every few years? Does China deploy chemical and nuclear weapons that continue to kill thousands of babies the world over for decades? Does China suppress language and culture of people living in its borders in a continuously unbroken 600-year genocide?
As far as I can tell, all systems have corruption, all systems have abuse of power - it’s the essence of governing systems that they are this way. What we should be worried about is actual abuses, not potential abuses. Worrying about potential abuses allows you to focus on China while the USA kills millions, tortures with impunity, trains terrorists and death squads, and sows death and destruction everywhere it goes. Focus on the problem. China’s not the problem.
Hong Kong’s leader handpicked judges because the UK does it as well. This sounds very corrupt, but maybe it sounds normal for the Brits.
You need to work on your reading comprehension. The UK government does not ‘handpick’ judges for cases and under Hong among common law the Chinese government wasn’t meant to either.
While it’s possible he’s actually that stupid, he’s not posting in good faith. Don’t waste your time. :)
I’m not primarily posting for him. I’m posting for people who might otherwise be mislead
Fair!
I’m honestly intrigued by the tankie strategy of pretending to be dumber than a fence post.
I cannot see it working to convince anyone, so is the idea just to waste people’s time? The strategy effectively draws more attention to the issues China and Russia tend to try to suppress - if it wasn’t for tankies, this thread would have been completely uninformative in regards to Chinese human rights abuses. So it seems counterproductive.
Another theory is that a lot of them were hired to be Trump supporters online until recently, and that they’re just not very good at being Chinese/Russian apologists just yet. It’s a learning experience - we all have our rough days at work.
It’s interesting stuff. In either case it’s somehow nice to have someone ask the dumb questions, making the facts come out in the open for anyone whose just too afraid to ask. So I’ve change my mind - you’re not wasting your time. :)
Hmmm, perhaps he’s actually a HK pro-democracy activist posing a tanky to make them look dumb and spotlight China’s problematic policies.
… this is an unlikely hypothesis :)
There is a third category. A lot of these people are legitimately edgy teenagers who haven’t studied any history or political science outside of a very tiny socialist (and I use that term lightly, these are mostly anti-west reactionaries) information bubble and simply do not understand the enormity of their own ignorance. It becomes incredibly obvious once you’ve spent a bit of time engaging with them.
So how are they picked?
There’s basically a pool of judges available to sit in any particular court, and the court’s admin staff picks them based on a rota system, workload and availability.
You are misunderstanding what it means. The article specifically about this explains it better:
When Hong Kong returned to China in 1997, it was promised that trials by jury, previously practiced in the former British colony, would be maintained under the city’s constitution. But in a departure from the city’s common law tradition, the security law allows no-jury trials for national security cases.
Which is also the standard the world over
It’s absolutely not. There used to be right to trial by jury in all cases in Hong Kong before China took it away, which is what this article is about. So already it’s clearly not the “world standard.” Another example, United States routinely holds jury trials with classified national defense information and goes to great lengths to create a system to do this, since there is a constitutional guarantee to a trial by Jury. Process explained in this article: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/14/trump-trial-classified-documents-public-00102023 in regards to the trump case, which is a great example involving highly sensitive national security information. And that involves a jury too. I’d say you could just search online yourself and find out how wrong you are, but i doubt you’re arguing in good faith. So as you can see, the standard in China is not the same thing as the standard “the world over.” This was a right forcibly removed from the people of Hong Kong by China.
Take your authoritarian apologist made up nonsense elsewhere.
You’re comparing to a country that has FISA courts? That extrajudicially assassinates foreign nationals? That operates one of the most notorious extrajudicial agencies in living memory?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/29/us/politics/pentagon-guantanamo-secret-courtroom.html
https://www.npr.org/2013/06/07/189430580/the-history-behind-americas-most-secretive-court
https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1991/us/
https://www.aclu.org/documents/frequently-asked-questions-about-targeting-killing
Fisa courts are a process to obtain search warrants. They don’t try suspects. If a warrant resulted in information that led to charges, they would be indicted by a grand jury and that would then lead to a public jury trial. You’re also changing the subject because you’re clearly wrong here and don’t want to admit it, or more likely just arguing in bad faith. You said it was the “world standard” to strip someone of a right to trial by jury if it involved national security information. And that’s obviously untrue. Hong Kong (until China changed it) and the USA are two such places where it is not the standard. Some quick internet searching would show you many countries in the world protect a right to trial by jury, even in cases involving national security information. Which I really doubt is the case here, more likely some pretext by the Chinese government so they can continue to persecute any political opposition to their one party authoritarian rule. Just because China decided to not grant their citizens a trial by jury right does not mean it is the standard in the whole world. Don’t conflate the two.
LOL, unironically accusing me of authoritarian apologia because I am for the reintegration of a former British colonial holding with the country the British stole it from.
I think you need to reread that.
The ‘common law’ was instituted by Britain prior to Hong Kong’s hand-back. It contained measures to bolster the independence of the judiciary under the ‘one country, two systems’ agreement. China over-rode those conventions for this trial, handpicking judges.
