The Independent

End the show trial of free speech hero Jimmy Lai

Source: AFP via Getty

Early in the morning, the guards come for Jimmy Lai, a 76-year-old publisher who has been in solitary confinement for the last three years. He is fed a prison breakfast, handcuffed, and taken in a van to court, where three judges and a prosecutor, who between them represent the flower of the English legal tradition, are conducting a show trial.

Hong Kong has seen its share of tragedy and farce since the British left in 1997, but the prosecution of this case is a new low in its descent into darkness under Chinese control and the perversion of by people who were trained to uphold it.

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