TOP NEWS
Hong Kong's Financial Secretary Paul Chan spoke at Bloomberg's Global Regulatory Forum in New York City, alongside U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler. The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation expresses disappointment that participants in the forum, including top U.S. companies and their executives, have chosen to overlook the Chinese Communist Party's assaults on freedom in Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong community organised a demonstration outside the Global Regulatory Forum, where protesters handed participants a flyer explaining why Bloomberg should not have given Chan a platform to promote Hong Kong as a financial center while he represses civil rights at home.
The Hong Kong government has imprisoned 1,906 political prisoners since June 9, 2019, including nearly the entire democratic opposition and well-known figures such as Jimmy Lai, Joshua Wong, and Chau Hang-tung. We call on all U.S. officials, institutions, and businesses to avoid giving a platform for Hong Kong officials’ attempts to normalize the Hong Kong crackdown in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong
Patrick Lam, the former acting Chief Editor of Hong Kong pro-democracy media outlet Stand News, is seeking to overturn his conviction for “conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious publications.” Stand News was forced to shutter in December 2021 after national security police raided its newsroom and froze the publication’s assets.
In an essay for The Hong Kong Free Press journalist Tim Hamlett criticised the slow speed with which cases are prosecuted in Hong Kong. Sometimes the proceedings are delayed for so long that minors are tried as adults. A District Judge recently announced he would look into the delay in sentencing of participants arrested at a 2019 protest. The defendants include two twins, who were 14-years-old when they were detained five years ago.
Australia - Hong Kong
Australian judge Patrick Keane, one of the only six overseas justices remaining on Hong Kong’s top court since the introduction of national security laws, has been met by protesters. One protester approached Keane in the street, filming him and asking: “Do you know Jimmy Lai?” Keane declined to comment.
Alyssa Fong, Public Affairs and Advocacy Manager of the CFHK Foundation, told The Guardian it was “shocking” that Keane had chosen to join the bench after the national security law was enacted. “Well-known figures from the international legal community sitting on the court lend legitimacy to the authoritarian crackdown in Hong Kong,” she said. “As a Hongkonger, it is heartbreaking.”
Hong Kong authorities condemned protesters over attempts to “exert pressure” on overseas justices serving on the city’s top court.
The CFHK Foundation released a report in May calling for foreign judges in Hong Kong to step down. The report, “Lending Prestige to Persecution: How Foreign Judges are Undermining Hong Kong’s Freedoms and Why They Should Quit” was launched in the British House of Commons.
UK - Hong Kong
Lord Jonathan Sumption, who quit Hong Kong’s top court earlier this year, said the guilty verdict for 14 of the 16 pro-democracy figures who pleaded not guilty in the Hong Kong 47 case showed the Hong Kong Judiciary was “prepared to kowtow to Beijing.”
The Hong Kong government called Sumption’s comments biased, and said that Hong Kong enjoys judicial independence and rule of law. Any “reasonable, objective and fair person” would see that judges presided over trials independently and “without deviating from their responsibilities,” a government spokesperson said, according to The Hong Kong Free Press.
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