There is in the make-up of an autocratic regime the ability to twist rules and laws to suit its purposes.
China, which especially under President Xi Jinping wears its distaste for dissent on its sleeve, has demonstrated this amply by orchestrating the re-arrest of Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai days after he was granted bail ~ with extremely stringent conditions, we might add ~ in a case where he is accused under a stringent new security law of asking foreigners to interfere in Hong Kong’s affairs.
Mr Lai, the publisher of Apple Daily and a staunch critic of Beijing’s overbearing attitude towards the territory, was discharged on bail by the High Court after the judge found remarks made by him that attracted the provisions of the security law were only “comments and criticisms” and not quite a request for interference.
The judge set bail at HK$10 million ~ no small amount ~ and laid down the further condition that Lai could not use social media. Before the ink on the bail order had dried, Beijing made its displeasure known. In an editorial, the Communist Party-controlled People’s Daily on 27 December described Lai as an insurgent and a person it deemed extremely dangerous.
It urged Hong Kong’s judiciary to “make the right decision” in the bail appeal. Even though five of the 10,000 members of the Hong Kong Law Society summoned up the nerve to deem the editorial an unwarranted interference, four days later Lai was ordered back to prison.
A two-judge Bench held it was “reasonably arguable” that the judge who granted bail may have erred in interpreting Article 42 of the security law. The article states “no bail shall be granted to a criminal suspect or defendant unless the judge has sufficient grounds for believing that the criminal suspect or defendant will not continue to commit acts endangering national security”.
While a proposition such as this, one that assumes guilt in the first instance with the use of the words “will not continue”, can find no resonance in democracies, the security law by itself is a symbol of the heavy hand that Beijing is now determined to employ in Hong Kong. While Mr Lai is the most prominent of Hong Kong’s dissidents to face China’s wrath, he joins several others who have been incarcerated under the security law that proscribes actions Beijing deems seditious, subversive or taken in concert with foreign forces.
These charges can attract life imprisonment. The law has been roundly criticized, especially because it is wholly antithetical to Hong Kong’s common law-based legal system that places the burden of proving charges on the prosecution. The new law places the onus of proving innocence on the accused person.
Mr Lai is now 73 and had, anticipating Beijing’s wrath, stepped down recently as head of his publishing company. The last sparks of freedom in Hong Kong are being ruthlessly extinguished.