Hong Kong judges who found Jimmy Lai guilty must face sanctions, British lawmaker says
Hong Kong judges who found Jimmy Lai guilty must face sanctions, British lawmaker says
Hong Kong judges who found Jimmy Lai guilty must face sanctions
Op-ed by British MP Iain Duncan Smith.
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The time has come for the UK to wield its sanctions authority against the officials responsible for repression in Hong Kong. Jimmy Lai’s guilty conviction for “foreign collusion” and “sedition” on December 15, which paves the way for Hong Kong’s courts to sentence the 78-year-old British citizen to life in prison, is the final straw.
Beijing has trashed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, crushed the freedoms it promised Hongkongers and imprisoned nearly 2,000 political prisoners, including Lai.
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Last year, Britain rightly issued Magnitsky-style sanctions targeting the ringleaders of people-smuggling gangs, Georgian judges involved in money laundering and media moguls peddling Russian disinformation, freezing their property, bank accounts and other assets. In contrast, the human rights abusers in Hong Kong continue to act with impunity.
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The three judges responsible for Lai’s guilty verdict — Alex Lee, Esther Toh and Susana D’Almada Remedios — two of whom were called to the Bar in London, should be immediate targets. The authorities pledged that Hong Kong’s draconian National Security Law (NSL) would not be applied retrospectively, and yet all but a sliver of their 855-page judgment on Lai refers to activities that took place before the NSL’s imposition in June 2020.
It is not too late for Britain to show the authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong that the legal process in Hong Kong has become a sham.