That's right, Hong Kong is now and has been a communist colony since 1997 when the stupid British relinquished their right to the colony on July 1, 1997 -- after 156 years of British rule!
Hong Kong's prosperity and freedom were crushed and extinguished.
(If you want to know what life is like in Hong Kong these days, just ask Cardinal Zen!
"HONG KONG (LifeSiteNews) — A Hong Kong court has found pro-democracy activist, businessman, former newspaper owner, and Catholic convert Jimmy Lai guilty of charges of sedition and violating the controversial National Security Law (NSL), for which he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Lai, a British national who founded the pro-democracy, anti-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tabloid Apple Daily in 1995 (the paper was forced to shut down in 2021), was put on trial starting in December 2023 on charges of “collusion with foreign forces” and the promotion of “seditious publications” in violation of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) 2020 NSL. He had been previously sentenced to a six-year jail term and HK$2 million in fines in December 2022 allegedly for “fraud.”
“My father is suffering from rapidly deteriorating health,” the 78-year-old Lai’s daughter Claire has written. “He has diabetes and hypertension, his hearing and vision are failing, he has suffered from months-long infections and is in constant pain that sometimes leaves him struggling even to stand up. But the most visible and alarming sign of his plight is severe weight loss.” She went on to detail how he has been denied sunlight, fresh air, and Holy Communion.
Now, CNN reports that the judges who delivered the verdict claim there was “no doubt that [Lai] had harbored his resentment and hatred of the PRC for many of his adult years,” as demonstrated by his lobbying of the first Trump administration to side with the people of Hong Kong against Beijing, including meetings with former Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, his online communications with other pro-democracy activists, and his public advocacy of revoking student visas for the children of Chinese government officials.
“We are satisfied that [Lai] was the mastermind of the conspiracies” with which he was charged, they said, and that his “only intent … was to seek the downfall” of the CCP.
Lai’s sentencing will not be announced until a later date, but he is not expected to receive anything less than life in prison.
Lai’s son Sebastien Lai is urging the British government to try to make his father’s freedom a condition of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s desire for closer relations with China.
“Close relationships with China… If that’s what you want, then fine, but there should be preconditions, and my father’s release needs to be a precondition of that, because we’re never going to normalise… a citizen of ours getting arrested abroad for standing up for freedom of democracy,” he said. “Now’s the time to push for action, not words.”
“The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hates Jimmy Lai because he is an example of the history of so many of Hong Kong’s population,” responded Lord Patten of Barnes, the last British Governor of Hong Kong and Patron of Hong Kong Watch. “He stowed away to escape communist rule in mainland China and enjoyed economic and political freedom in what was then a British colony. He became a passionate advocate for the freedoms which made Hong Kong such a successful example of the partnership between economic and political freedom.”
“What the Communists really hated about him was that, even when he could have left Hong Kong in 1997 for Britain, as a citizen here, or for other countries, he chose to stay behind alongside the people of Hong Kong whose human rights he had so long defended and written about,” he continued. “Beijing, and the puppet government in Hong Kong, hates in particular those who have bravely stood up to it.”
“I hope that all in the rest of the world who believe in freedom will call frequently and loudly for his release from captivity,” he added. “The Catholic Church should also raise in particular the refusal to allow him in prison to practice as a Catholic.”
“The conviction of Jimmy Lai makes a mockery of justice and signals the end of any confidence in the Hong Kong judicial system,” Reggie Littlejohn, the president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers and Anti-Globalist International, told LifeSiteNews. “The Hong Kong National Security Law, imposed by the Chinese Communist Party, has at its aim, the death of dissent, the dismantling of opposition, and the rendering of nonviolent political activism essentially impossible. The fact that the CCP has criminalized peaceful free speech and international advocacy as national security threats points to the vulnerability of the regime.”
“Jimmy Lai is 78 years old and has endured solitary confinement for five years,” she continued. “Reportedly, the temperature in his cell can reach 111 degrees Fahrenheit (44 degrees Celsius) in the summer. He has diabetes as well as heart and blood pressure issues. Recent reports state that he has suffered dramatic weight loss, and that he is losing his teeth and nails. He is at serious risk of dying in prison unless the international community rises immediately to his defense.”
Littlejohn called upon Starmer and President Donald Trump to “hold the CCP accountable by prioritizing negotiations for Mr. Lai’s release on the basis of medical and humanitarian concerns, warning of the imposition of sanctions should Mr. Lai remain in custody. I call upon the U.S. legislature and governing bodies around the world to do the same. Jimmy Lai no longer belongs just to Hong Kong. He belongs to the world. Hong Kong’s National Security Law was designed to chill any criticism of the CCP. May the CCP be scorched by a firestorm of criticism from every corner of the earth for its appalling abuse of the incomparable hero and prisoner of conscience, Jimmy Lai.”
Anti-Globalist International is circulating a petition urging Trump, Starmer, and other world leaders to take action to set Lai free.
“By shining a light on the human rights atrocities of the Chinese Communist Party, Jimmy Lai has become a beacon of hope for the people of Hong Kong and the world,” it reads. “He has sacrificed his own personal freedom for that of his beloved Hong Kong. He is a man of heroic virtue and towering moral excellence. The CCP is doing everything it can to extinguish the man and snuff out the hope. We must not allow this to happen.”
“President Trump, Prime Minister Starmer and other World Leaders – including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Members of the United States Congress, Members of the European Parliament, United Nations Human Rights Council, United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, and the Secretariat of State of the Holy See — we appeal to you to take urgent action to free Jimmy Lai,” the petition implores. “If he is not freed soon, we are concerned that he will die in jail.”'
End of horrific information...
Please pray for Jimmy Lai!
Viva Cristo Rey! Bl. Fr. Miguel Pro, Fr. Emil Kapaun and Fr. Vincent Capodanno, pray for us...
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle...
St. Joseph pray for us!!
Gene DeLalla
