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The crackdown continues in Hong Kong, and this week the Chinese language authorities made an instance of the territory’s most distinguished political prisoners.
Writer
Jimmy Lai
is again in jail after Hong Kong’s Court docket of Ultimate Attraction revoked his bail. An extended-time democracy advocate and critic of the Communist Occasion, Mr. Lai faces a number of prices for taking part in final yr’s Hong Kong protests, and authorities have additionally charged him beneath the brand new national-security legislation, which successfully outlaws dissent.
The utmost sentence is life in jail, and there’s no assure that Chinese language authorities received’t extradite Mr. Lai to the mainland. A decrease courtroom enraged Beijing final week when it granted bail and allowed Mr. Lai to await his trial beneath home arrest so long as he kept away from giving interviews, posting on social media, or making public statements.
The prosecution cited Article 42 of the safety legislation, which states that no bail will be granted “except the decide has adequate grounds for believing the legal suspect or defendant won’t proceed to commit acts endangering nationwide safety.” Mr. Lai poses no such risk. He has bravely chosen to not flee regardless of having a British passport, and China desires to make an instance of him to stifle all criticism.
In the meantime on the mainland, a Shenzhen courtroom meted out harsh sentences for 10 Hong Kongers who had been arrested as they fled by boat to Taiwan. Authorities wouldn’t let these thwarted refugees meet with the legal professionals employed by their households, and on Wednesday the courtroom sentenced the 10 to between seven months and three years, nearly definitely to be spent in China’s opaque and infamous jail system.
Beijing now considers it a legal offense to aim to flee persecution in Hong Kong. That is Soviet or North Korean conduct, and we hope that
Joe Biden
and his officers will converse plainly in opposition to it.
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