China has made it clear to the people of Hong Kong that the CCP is fully in charge and any hint of democratic freedom is officially dead. The CCP has sentenced the freedom fighter and newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison. Lai is 78 years old so the sentence is seen as a de facto death sentence. The judge gave him the harsh sentence because he accused Lai of being the mastermind behind the resistance to the CCP’s infiltration of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Court Sentences Pro-Democracy Publisher Jimmy Lai to 20 Years in Prison – legalinsurrection.com
A Hong Kong Court sentenced pro-democracy, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) critic media mogul Jimmy Lai, 78, to 20 years in prison.
Six of Lai’s former employees received sentences of up to 10 years.
Lai’s daughter Claire described it as a “heartbreakingly cruel sentence,” claiming, “he will die a martyr behind bars.”
The judges determined that Lai deserved the harsh sentence “because he was ‘no doubt the mastermind’ of the conspiracies he was convicted of orchestrating.”
They cut the sentence down by 25 months due to Lai’s “health issues, which include diabetes and hypertension.”
In December, The Associated Press reported that “[T]hree government-vetted judges found Lai, 78, guilty of conspiring with others to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiracy to publish seditious articles.”
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. However, the Communists have tightened their grip on the region, especially in 2020, with a national security law:
The stringent national security law and its 66 articles were kept secret from the public until 11pm local time, when the law officially went into effect. It dramatically broadens Beijing’s powers to investigate, prosecute and punish suspected criminals in Hong Kong.