On the third anniversary of the death of Dr Li Wenliang and the second day of Hong Kong's largest national security law trial

  

Lady Justice is usually portrayed as blindfolded;

justice being blind is supposed to be a good thing, not bad

 

Today is the third anniversary of the death of Dr Li Wenliang, the Covid whistleblower who died from a then mysterious virus he had tried to warn others about.  In late December 2020, the Wuhan opthamologist told fellow doctors in a group chat about a new pathogen he had been hearing about. He was soon summoned by the local authorities, who accused him of making "false comments" and "disturbing the social order," and forced him to sign a statement agreeing to keep silent.

 

"Li later shared the statement online: "We solemnly warn you: If you keep being stubborn, with such impertinence, and continue this illegal activity, you will be brought to justice—is that understood?""  With the implicit insinuation being that "justice" meant "punishment" for the likes of him.

 

As a Deutsche Welle (DW) piece from February 2020 noted: Li Wenliang "was not a dissident. He wasn't even political. He was simply a doctor doing his job. But as he became more ill, he began to speak more openly, even granting an interview to The New York Times." And: "Just days before he died, Li said from his hospital bed: "I think there should be more than one voice in a healthy society, and I don't approve of using public power for excessive interference.”"  Something that I think many of us would totally agree with.

 

Today is also the second day of Hong Kong's largest national security law trial; of which there has been much coverage in the international media (e.g., CNN, Al Jazeera, the New York Times, Nikkei Asia and The Guardian).  There are 47 defendants: all of whom were arrested and charged close to two years ago on February 28th, 2021; and most of whom have been denied bail and held behind bars all this time.

 

"Joshua Wong, Benny Tsai, Claudia Mo, Au Nok-hin, Ray Chan, Tat Cheng, Sam Cheung, Andrew Chiu, Owen Chow, Eddie Chu, Andy Chui, Ben Chung, Gary Fan, Frankie Fung, Kalvin Ho, Gwyneth Ho, Kwok Ka-ki, Lam Cheuk-ting, Mike Lam, Nathan Lau, Lawrence Lau, Ventus Lau, Shun Lee, Fergus Leung, Leung Kwok-hung, Kinda Li, Hendrick Lui, Gordon Ng, Ng Kin-wai, Carol Ng, Ricky Or, Michael Pang, Jimmy Sham, Lester Shum, Sze Tak-loy, Roy Tam, Jeremy Tam, Tam Tak-chi, Andrew Wan, Prince Wong, Henry Wong, Helena Wong, Wu Chi-wai, Alvin Yeung, Clarisse Yeung, Winnie Yu, Tiffany Yuen.

 

"These are the names of all 47 people appearing in court today in Hong Kong. Remember their names. They are all people with families, people who had dreams and ambitions that were curtailed as Hong Kong went from being one of Asia’s most liberal cities to a tightly controlled state in just a matter of years. Amongst them are former politicians, democracy leaders, scholars, health care workers, even a disability activist. These people are the best of us and we could be them tomorrow. Rights are fragile – their examples are case in point."

 

Jemimah Steinfeld, Editor-in-chief of Index on Censorship magazine, let rip in a piece out yesterday entitled Hong Kong's travesty of a show trial begins. She also was moved to Tweet this as context: "Lots of tempered wording in the coverage of the #HongKong47 trial, but I couldn't contain my fury at it all." The following are a few more paragraphs from the piece: 

The 47 are accused of “conspiracy to commit subversion” over the holding of unofficial pre-election primaries in July 2020. The primaries aimed to select the strongest candidates among Hong Kong’s then robust pro-democracy movement to run against the CCP-aligned parties. Until then, unofficial primary polls had been a common feature in Hong Kong political landscape, but in the wake of the draconian National Security Law which was passed at the end of June that year, Beijing labelled the democracy camp’s event illegal. In dawn raids on 6 January 2021, the organisers, candidates and campaigners were arrested. Many have been in jail since, denied bail.

 

The Hong Kong government labels them dangerous criminals and for that they could be behind bars for anything from three years to their whole lives. They are anything but.

 

The trial is a sham. There is no jury, going against a long tradition in Hong Kong’s legal system, which was established in line with British common law. The judges are handpicked by Beijing. There are reports that some who are taking up the 39 seats reserved for the public in the main courtroom don’t even know who is on trial.

Re the last: indeed. Not only that but many, if not all, of those folks waiting in line to take those precious limited seats are being paid to do so -- or, at the very least, expecting to be paid for their efforts.  The Hong Kong Free Press' editor-in-chief, Tom Grundy, Tweeted yesterday afternoon that: "One court goer approached journalists (including @HKFP's) outside the courthouse asking where she could pick up payment... Emilia Wong, [the legally-trained] partner of a defendant [Ventus Lau], said: “It is obvious that someone is trying to stop the general public from observing the case.""

 

And today, according to at least one report, "[a m]an said he received HK$1500 for queuing, taking the ticket for the seat and leaving the court before court starts - blocking others from using the seat. He also said he brought friends to queue to get HK$1000 each".  Something which I don't only find disgusting but reckon helps to explain why many pro-government/Beijing folks are unable to believe that millions of people voluntarily took part in pro-democracy protests (in the hot sun, rain, braving tear gas, pepper spray, etc. in the process) without getting paid! 

 

Returning to the subject of the trial proper, here's sharing two more statements from Jemimah Steinfeld: "The 47 are walking into court with their guilt presumed"; and "This is a show trial masquerading as justice. It is a joke."  But one that will have few people laughing, especially over here in Hong Kong.  

As the blogger behind the Big Lychee was moved to sum up in his blog post today: "In short, the trial is likely to reflect badly on a city trying to convince the world it is free and open. To Hongkongers, the dissonance or contradiction between the political prosecutions and jailings and the Hello Hong Kong tourism campaign is both absurd and tragic. But not too puzzling if you can grasp the new-look ‘One Country, Two Systems’ model: Beijing is in charge of this stuff, leaving Hong Kong officials to flail helplessly doing that stuff."