On top of all the recent sabre rattling from China, we now get this latest abuse of legal human rights…
China stripping licences from lawyers for Hong Kong pro-democracy supporters
A Chinese lawyer who represented a supporter of democracy in Hong Kong has been stripped of his licence amid efforts by Beijing to crush opposition to its tighter control over the territory.
Lu Siwei, who represented one of 12 Hong Kong residents who tried to flee to Taiwan, had his licence revoked by the Sichuan Provincial Justice Department in a formal notice given Friday.
Ten of the 12 activists caught at sea in August were sentenced by a Shenzhen court in December to prison terms ranging from seven months to three years for illegally crossing the border and organising illegal border crossings.
They are part of an exodus of Hong Kong residents following Beijing’s imposition of a tough new security law they say is destroying the territory’s Western-style civil liberties.
…punishing people for escaping your brutal regime is an irony lost on the Chinese…
Beijing says the legislation allows Hong Kong to “enjoy more social stability, economic development and greater freedom”.
…stripping the legal rights to defend protestors is about as authoritarian as it gets and with China’s insecurity over internal dissent and losing global face because of Covid, they are ripe to make an example of either Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia or anyone who questions their South China Sea annexation.
China is increasingly becoming authoritarian and the sooner NZ decouples from their economy, the better.
Our relationship with China is fast becoming a National Security issue, it is no longer just an economic one.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media.
A couple of observations:
When UK “gave back” Hong Kong. You would have had been an idiot to believe they were going to allow Hong Kong to continue to operate independently with greater social freedom than the mainland. Idiocy is the greatest disease infecting politics and the ruling class therefore no surprise they got taken by China – hook, line and sinker. It’s like the frog paid for the scorpion to hit a ride on it’s back.
Are we really that different when we ban the right on social media and big corporates black list individuals based on their political beliefs? Thank god i’m not on twitter and my ‘faceslut’ page is merely for my kids’ games that demanded they have an account. You all should be fearful not cheering on this process because once they finish with us they will train their eye on the traditional left as well. The new left are cultural and political puritans much like Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.
China plays the long game – it’s how their culture works. While the west has moved to instant gratification China has been playing 3 dimensional chess. Most of their pieces are in place now and they wait. By the time they move on Taiwan the West will be a shattered shell of itself, fighting ideological shadows and blissfully unaware we have been usurped. The tools of western civilization (the UN, IMF, Worldbank etc) will soon be dependent on Chinese money to survive. This is the future that we have willingly stumbled into.
“China plays the long game – it’s how their culture works.”
Well the British sure played the “long game” when they took Hong Kong in the first place and plundered most places around the world of their wealth – a legacy that is enjoyed by countries such as NZ?
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Opium-Wars
And of course NZ was never plundered by Britain, it’s native people never subjected to the deliberate inducement of mind altering substances such as alcohol, never exposed to genocidal disease,never had their land and assets stolen, their homes destroyed ….oh wait???
Kauri, Gold, Gum, Whales, Seals, Land to feed the English. Yeah it only happened to the Chinese Mark.
And Jacinda will say and do absolutely NOTHING!. Labour the government you have when you want nothing to change.
Well of course she should do nothing.
This is a matter that is not only internal to Hong Kong but internal to mainland China itself – the lawyer is a Chinese lawyer barred from practicing within mainland China.
How would New Zealand feel if China criticized New Zealand for banning, say, the reading of Brenton Tarrant’s manifesto. New Zealand rightly banned the Tarrant manifesto for its call to violence, and China is doing what it is is required to do to stop violence in Hong Kong.
Yeah because China banning legal representation from oppression from a totalitarian regime and New Zealand banning hate speech from the perpetrator after a massacre is just the same! Oh wait.
Jesus Mark why do you ALWAYS say it is all right for the Chinese Communist Party to behave like bastards now because someone was once mean to China one hundred years ago or more.
The fact is China is a a member of the UN now. The United Nations – now – has a charter that upholds human rights.
The Chinese government agreed to that charter when it became a member of the world community via the UN. It also agreed to the United Nations Charter as applies to self-determination – people can choose the form of government they want to live under. For example, Taiwan is entitled to be an independent republic if its people want it.
If China keeps ignoring that fact it can expect to face criticism.
If it wanted to carry on being a pack of vicious tyrants without facing international criticism it should have remained safely behind its walls as the Middle Kingdom and centre of all beneath heaven.
The lawyer’s license was revoked not because he represented an activist caught in illegal border crossing, but because of professional misconduct through publicly commenting on the case when it was still pending trial on social media, including comments perceived by authorities as false and misleading that attempted to prejudge and influence public opinion on the case. In the law profession, making public comments on a pending case is often considered a violation of the profession’s codes of conduct.
Comments are closed.