Jimmy Lai's Offense: Tweets and Op-eds

One month into Jimmy Lai’s trial, and the nationwide safety case in opposition to him boils all the way down to this: The writer posted tweets, supported native democrats and was in contact with human-rights leaders and former U.S. officers who shared his issues that Hong Kong’s freedoms had been being eroded. That’s it.

When a person is dealing with lifetime imprisonment for threatening nationwide safety, you’d anticipate him to be accused of promoting state secrets and techniques or plotting to assassinate somebody. As a substitute Hong Kong has criminalized Mr. Lai’s calls to uphold freedom and the rule of regulation. He additionally urged the U.S. to make use of diplomatic strain on China, together with sanctions. None of those are secret conspiracies: Nearly all of what Mr. Lai advocated was in public.