Hong Kong officials respond to former US VP Mike Pence’s comments about Jimmy Lai at a business summit in the city…
A government spokesperson said Pence’s comments were intended “to influence the fairness of the trial with malicious intent”.
This was “a shameless interference with the course of justice and on Hong Kong’s righteous efforts in safeguarding national security”.
US politicians should not “make use of business activities for political manipulation in a vain attempt to challenge the rule of law in Hong Kong”, the spokesperson said.
The government wants Hong Kong to be a ‘hub’ for conferences and other events – until a participant says something disagreeable.
Is malicious intent in the eye of the beholder?
A little flurry of pre-Chinese New Year NatSec activity…
A man is arrested on suspicion of posting ‘seditious’ items on social media – ‘knowingly publishing publications that had a seditious intention’…
According to a legal document, the defendant is a bus technician named Li Chun-kit. The defence did not apply for bail. He will be detained in custody until his case is next scheduled to be mentioned in court on March 3.
Li was accused of “publishing statements, photos, and/or pictures on Facebook with an intent to bring people into hatred, contempt or disaffection against” Hong Kong, and inciting violence or unlawful acts between March 29 last year and January 21.
Two brothers and a sister of wanted former pollster Chung Kim-wah are taken in for questioning…
Tuesday morning’s questioning comes after Chung’s wife and son were last Tuesday taken to police stations. The previous day, PORI CEO Robert Chung was questioned and the pollster’s office was searched.
And Lam Cheuk-ting’s lawyer pleads for a shorter prison term after being found guilty of trying to help victims of a mob attack – aka ‘riot’…
At the District Court on Wednesday, defence counsel Catherine Wong asked district judge Stanley Chan to consider that Lam believed he had a duty to de-escalate tensions at the Yuen Long MTR station on July 21, 2019, when more than a hundred men dressed in white stormed the station.
The attack left 45 people injured, including journalists, protesters, and commuters, as well as Lam, who was last month found guilty of rioting alongside six others after Chan ruled that he had tried to take advantage of the attack to benefit politically.
…At Wednesday’s mitigation hearing, Wong said the fact that Lam was a known public figure did not have anything to do with the rioting case and should not have any bearing on his sentence.
Lam had ‘tried to take advantage of the attack politically’. What exactly does that mean?
Mike Pence’s malicious attempts to influence the trial are doomed to fail.
Sadly, the judge in the case is Stanley Chan Kwong-chi who has shown repeatedly in various cases that he is more or less detached from reality and really should have been put out to pasture years ago.
For example, here is an analysis of his mishandling of a case 15 years ago…
https://smogsblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/procurement-by-false-pretences-the-hk-legal-system-makes-an-ass-of-itself
If some unknown Hongkonger posted online the same comments made by Mike Pence, he would almost certainly end up in a national security court. So if the government finds his comments so objectionable, why wasn’t Pence arrested under the NSL? Surely we don’t have two-tier justice in Hong Kong? Do we?
“According to a legal document, the defendant is a bus technician named Li Chun-kit. The defence did not apply for bail. He will be detained in custody until his case is next scheduled to be mentioned in court on March 3.”
Perhaps the defendant lives in one of those subdivided rat holes and thought he’d get better accommodations and meals in jail than if he just stayed home during the holiday season?
“In my opinion this case should be rapidly thrown out on appeal on the multiple grounds touched on above, and Mr Stanley Chan Kwong-chi should be looking for a new job – he is a disgrace to the good name of the Hong Kong judiciary.” ~Smogsblog
It does seem Mr Stanley Chan would have been a great fit in the current U.S. Supreme Court alongside Uncle Clarence Thomas and Sammy Alito, had he been ‘Murikan.