Please remember this date, February 9, 2021.
This is the day when the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong ruled in favor of the Department of Justice on the appeal of Lai Chi-ying‘s bail case. From this day onwards, the common law in Hong Kong is dead. When the common law dies, the rule of law in Hong Kong dies. This is a landmark date, please remember it.
The five judges of the Court of Final Appeal, whether they racked their brains to resist the state security law or took the initiative to cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party to dismember the common law, the inside story of which we may never know, but Lai Chi-ying has first fallen into the net of the state security law.
Before the case was considered, Lin Zheng met with Zhang Ju Neng, and whether this unusual meeting had anything to do with the verdict may never be answered either. Whether the five judges of the Court of Final Appeal, who repeatedly questioned the representatives of the Department of Justice in court, gave the impression of maintaining justice, is true or not, and may also never be answered.
Before that, I still believed that the rule of law in Hong Kong was only dying, not yet broken, and we should still have confidence in the Court of Final Appeal and some of its judges. But today, even the Court of Final Appeal has bowed to the National Security Law, instead of bowing to the Basic Law and the Human Rights Law, and bowing to the ultimate moral code of human beings, then my judgment is: the rule of law in Hong Kong is dead, and Lai Chi-ying is more established from this day on as a hero of Hong Kong people.
Lai Chi-ying would not have had to go through this torture, he could have left and traveled far away to avoid Qin, as the Chinese say who will go to hell if I don’t, he chose to stay and wrangle with the devil. He was a Catholic, and he had a Christian spirit in him, that is, he was going to carry this cross for all of us.
In order to stand together with the people of Hong Kong in their struggle, he led his colleagues in Apple Daily to hold on to a small area of land and to support them, but also to encounter the poisonous hands of the Chinese Communist Party, and to endure inhuman torture in his old age, which in turn caused his Family to suffer long-lasting pain.
In this New Year of the Ox, I would like to wish him to take good care of himself, to eat and sleep well, to take good care of his health, to be optimistic in prison, to read and think, to keep his mental strength and to continue to lead us forward.
I also wish the family of Lai Chi-ying, asking them to restrain their sadness and be optimistic and cheerful, believing that millions of Hong Kong people will always stand with them and continue to fight against the devil of dictatorship with an undying spirit until the triumphant return of democracy.
I hereby appeal to the hands and feet of the overseas line that this verdict of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal should be more widely reported in detail to dignitaries and media around the world, so as to arouse the attention of more local people. All countries should have a final judgment on the death of the rule of law in Hong Kong and stop harboring any illusions about the Chinese Communist Party and stop standing idly by while Hong Kong people suffer. Governments should take a unified stand and sanction the CCP with effective means as a way to get justice for Lai Chi-ying.
Since this day, Lai Chi-ying is no longer just Lai Chi-ying, he is the spiritual leader of our people in Hong Kong, a banner for us, and a representative of the forces of justice in Hong Kong. Therefore, apart from Lee Chu-ming being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, I think Lai Chi-ying is definitely qualified to be nominated as well. I hope that the handlers of the overseas front will be more active and make use of various channels to run around as much as possible, because Lai Chi-ying will definitely have a seat in the history of the development of democracy in the world and his spirit will go down in the history books.
I would also like to take this opportunity to remind you that we have a long road ahead of us, and disasters are coming one after another, so we should not be so easily convinced by the brutal methods of the Chinese Communist Party as the mainlanders are. The imprisonment of Li Zhiying is to make us afraid, to break us up, to make us accept their world, to be trampled under their feet. We have to do the opposite, to live with fortitude, to remember what happened here, not to get used to the chains imposed on Hong Kong by the Chinese Communist Party, not to make deals with the devil.
We have to be united, united to last, to be tolerant and understanding of each other, to look at the big picture and see the mainstream. If you disagree with some views of a handicapped person, it is not a problem as long as he is still on the side of Lai Chi-ying. If someone from Apple Daily writes an article that you disagree with, it is not a problem as long as the owner of Apple is still Lai Chi-ying, there is no need to unsubscribe. You should know that the gang standing across from Chi-Ying Lai smiling grimly is also the gang standing across from us smiling grimly, we do not share the same fate as this gang, let’s not destroy ourselves.
I am of the same age as Mr. Li Zhiying, with whom I originally had no encounter. A long Time ago, on a public occasion, Mr. Dong Qiao introduced me to meet with him, and afterwards I took the initiative to invite him to submit his articles to Tiandi Books for publication, and he agreed to do so, but unfortunately this collaboration did not work out later. After the anti-Send-China movement, I wrote some articles for Apple, and then one day Mr. Lai personally called and invited me to write a column for Apple Daily, and later they invited me to write two editorials a week. I felt sincerely honored and proud to be a part of Apple Daily. Although my family and I are long gone from Hong Kong, Hong Kong will always be my Home, and my heart is always with the people of Hong Kong. When there is an Apple, Hong Kong will still be here and the spirit of Hong Kong people will still be there. One day when Hong Kong is without apples, Hong Kong will not be Hong Kong.
I ask myself that I am not a weak person, but I am still ashamed of myself compared to Lai Chi-ying. If I were in another place, I dare not say I would have the same willpower to bear his present pain, so I can only say that I will also try to strengthen myself and follow in his footsteps. Although we remain optimistic about the future, neither he nor I may have the chance to see the day when the CCP falls. Regardless, we still have to do our little bit to fight for that day, for future generations.
History is not on Xi Jinping‘s side, it is on Li Zhiying’s side, it is on our side, and I firmly believe this.
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