“I’m not okay today. Benny Tai was the co-author of my first academic article over 20 years ago before either of us were activists,” said Kevin Yam.
Yam is an Australian lawyer wanted by Hong Kong authorities; he is among those living overseas with a bounty on his head. He was quoted in the Australian outlet ABC News (“Hong Kong court sentences 45 pro-democracy activists up to 10 years in jail,” November 18, 2024).
“And as for Gordon Ng [shown above]—encouraging people to vote in an informal, non-binding process on a Facebook page gets you 7 years and three months? Really?”
Mr Ng was one of almost 50 campaigners who were charged with subversion under the laws, which critics say have been designed to extinguish political opposition in Hong Kong.
It would be good if newspaper reporters were privy to the same facts as critics regarding the conduct of the Chinese Communist Party and its underlings. Then the report could have stated that Ng “was one of almost 50 campaigners who were charged with subversion under the laws, which have been designed to extinguish political opposition in Hong Kong.” Could the CCP’s “lawful” extinguishing of political opposition in Hong Kong been the accidental byproduct of the pursuit of some unrelated and nobler cause?
On Tuesday a court handed them sentences ranging between four and 10 years in jail, for the charge of “conspiracy to commit subversion” for participating in an unofficial primary vote in 2020….
Most have been in prison for nearly four years.
The group was given a range of sentences, with Benny Tai, a former legal scholar who was labelled as an “organiser” of the activists, handed the longest sentence at 10 years.
Prominent student leader and activist Joshua Wong was given a four years and eight months sentence….
The unofficial primary vote was designed to increase the chances of getting pro-democratic candidates elected into Hong Kong’s Legislative Council in the 2020 election.
The feared punishments of 45 Hongkongers not so much for participating in democracy as for preparing to participate in democracy have thus come to pass.
The three obedient judges assigned by the Chinese Communist Party to rule in the matter contend that since the defendants were “conspiring” to oppose the existing CCP-run Hong Kong government—they might even have vetoed a budget!—their sentences are well deserved.
The sentences of the 45 defendants took about ten minutes to rattle off. But an 82-page statement of the reasons would be posted online, noted the three stooges. If there’s anything that experienced, skilled, professional, dishonest judges are good at, it’s coming up with extensive explication of the reasonableness and justice of travesties of justice.
