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The heroic Jimmy Lai could have left Hong Kong before being arrested but he refused to.
Hong Kong court sentences media tycoon Jimmy Lai
to long prison term
By Matt Bernardini
Media mogul Jimmy Lai was sentenced to five years and seven months in prison on Saturday by a Hong Kong District Court. Photo by Jerome Favre/EPA-EFE
Dec. 10 (UPI) -- Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai on Saturday was sentenced to five years and seven months in prison after being convicted on two counts of fraud.
A Hong Kong district court said that the 75-year-old breached land lease terms by deliberately concealing a consultancy firm at the offices of his now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper.
Judge Stanley Chan Kwong-chi said Lai had played a significant role in deceiving the publication's landowner under the cover of a "fairly sizeable and reputable" news outlet, the South China Morning Post reported.
"If a media organization, representing the so-called fourth power, allowed a firm to occupy its space without authorization to carry out its businesses, was it not that such organization did so under the aegis of its reputation as the media?" the judge asked.
The case against Lai has increased concerns about diminishing press freedom in Hong Kong.
Several pro-democracy media outlets closed after the introduction of a strict security law, which has been used to jail much of the city's political opposition.
Hong Kong has fallen 68 places from a year earlier to No. 148 in Reporters Without Borders' most recent World Press Freedom Index.
"Illegal demonstration, fraud, national security crimes -- the diversity of the charges against Jimmy Lai, and the staggering severity of the sentences imposed on him, show how desperate the Chinese regime is to silence this symbolic figure of press freedom in Hong Kong," Reporters Without Borders bureau head Cédric Alviani said Saturday.
Lai is already serving 20 months for his role in unauthorized assemblies during 2019 anti-government protests. The pro-democracy activist also faces charges under the national security law, including conspiracy to collude with foreign forces.
Foreign forces - does that mean media?
After the ruling, Lai must also pay a $256,850 fine and he is banned from managing companies for eight years.
No, I am not Russophobic or anti-Russian - but when you write laws for the express purpose of silencing political opposition, and then use those laws to lock up your opponents, then I have a problem. And I cannot see how you can pretend to be a democracy.
Russian antiwar politician Ilya Yashin sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison
By Doug Cunningham
Antiwar Russian politician Ilya Yashin gives peace signs from glass cubicle in Russian court Friday.Yashin was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison for criticizing Russia's war on Ukraine, alleged by the Russian state of "spreading false information" about Russian atrocities in Ukraine. Photo courtesy of Ilya Yashin Facebook page
Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin was sentenced Friday to 8 1/2 years in prison after criticizing Russian Presdient Vladimir Putin and the war on Ukraine on his YouTube channel.
In a democracy, criticizing the government is what political opponents do!
A Russian court found him guilty of "spreading false information" about Russian atrocities in the Ukrainian city of Bucha committed in February and March. Yashin was prosecuted under a law passed after Russia invaded Ukraine
Yashin posted a message on Telegram reacting to his sentence.
"So, the court sentenced me to 8 years and 6 months in prison," he wrote. "Well, the authors of the verdict are optimistic about Putin's prospects. In my opinion, way too optimistic."
Yashin added that with the "hysterical verdict," the Russian government wants to intimidate all Russians, but he said in fact it demonstrates weakness.
"Only weaklings seek to shut everyone up, burn out any dissent," Yashin wrote in the Telegram post. "So today it only remains for me to repeat what was said on the day of my arrest: I am not afraid, and you are not afraid."
Yashin's conviction and sentence is another example of Russian suppression of dissent, and media coverage criticizing the war on Ukraine.
In a courtroom speech, Yashin said, "It physically pains me to think how many people have been killed in this war, how many lives have been ruined, and how many families have lost their homes. You cannot be indifferent. And I swear I do not regret anything."
He said it's better to spend 10 years behind bars as an honest man than "quietly burn with shame over the blood spilled by your government."
Russian antiwar protests have led to thousands of arrests. Thousands of Russians have also fled the country rather than be drafted to fight in Ukraine.
Putin has done a very poor job of selling this war to the Russian people. He hasn't attempted to explain that the war is actually a proxy war with NATO and America.
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