Jerome Cohen 孔傑榮(柯恩)
@jeromeacohen
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Professor Emeritus @NYULaw & Founder of @USALINYU ; Adjunct Senior Fellow for Asia @CFR_org . Twitter maintained by colleagues. Views = mine. RT≠endorsement.
Manhattan, NY
Joined September 2015
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It seems very unlikely that the HK Gov't will ever come forward with a credible plan for independent investigation of police misconduct. That’s why I suggest that community leaders, including some former officials, must take the lead in organizing a prestigious group...
All the more reason an independent investigation is essential:
#HongKong
police watchdog unequipped to probe protest response, say experts appointed by the HK govt
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This is a powerful letter and a powerful idea whose time may be here.
Open letter to Carrie Lam: an international, independent inquiry mechanism for Hong Kong
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So Hong Kong again has “boat people” but this time they are leaving, not arriving. I recall when Hong Kong was a haven for thousands of Vietnamese who had fled the arriving Communists in 1975. 1/n
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This is a thoughtful & plausible analysis of HK’s immediate future. If accurate in its hypothesis, the situation may soon become even worse.
The specter of Article 23 returns
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My take on the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act:
We live by symbols, and enactment of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act would be a strong expression of American support for the protesters in Hong Kong.
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Freedom from Arbitrary Detention in Asia
In light of the Hong Kong protests since last June, my colleague
@yujiechentw
and I have accordingly updated this article and added discussion of police arrests and detention in Hong Kong. Article available here:
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In
#GuiMinhai
’s case, China has violated international law & Sweden’s sovereign rights. Sweden can sue the PRC before the Int’l Court of Justice & should try to do so in order to raise the public pressure.
@SweMFA
China claims that
#GuiMinhai
gave up his Swedish citizenship when regaining Chinese nationality. This tactic is abusive & contrary to international law. My take.
Why Has China Claimed the Detained Bookseller Gui Minhai Restored his Chinese Nationality?
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I hope this event is widely publicized not only in Norway but also elsewhere.
Norwegian library refuses demand from Chinese skiers to remove Falun Gong book
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Here is an op-ed by
@nathanlawkc
summarizing the plight of his HK compatriots. I wish one could be optimistic about short-term prospects for the protest movement. Law mentions the HK’s alleged placement of him and five others on an arrest wanted list. 1/n
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The statement of China's liaison office in Hong Kong collapses the whole one country two systems edifice that was constructed over so many years since the Joint Declaration.
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I regret that Biden has apparently ruled out the possibility of boycotting the Olympics. We have so few possible effective responses to the PRC’s violations of human rights. Events may be moving toward even stronger efforts to label Xi Jinping...1/2
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Hong Kong's extradition law: Not just “Hong Kong people” have reason to fear Chinese “justice”!
It’s not only “Hong Kong people” whose fate is at stake here. Anyone passing through Hong Kong airport could be detained and sent to China.
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Navalny's death, like the previous years of his life, illustrates the differences that still exist between the PRC’s currently totalitarian criminal justice system and Russia’s authoritarian counterpart. Can you imagine the PRC giving noted political prisoners...1/4
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My take on the Taiwan President Tsai
@iingwen
's second inaugural speech:
It was a solid, substantive, serious & comprehensive overview, frank w/o being provocative, & open to improvement in cross-strait relations w/o appearing undignified or intimidated.
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The HKU governing council’s massive 18-2 repudiation of the faculty senate’s vote to retain Prof. Tai is the strongest confirmation of the new academic situation in HK. 1/n
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Here is a splendid urgent protest by Human Rights Watch against the tragic mistreatment of the valiant lawyer-journalist Ms. ZHANG Zhan.
@hrw
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Here is an AP story updating our knowledge of the growing PRC repression of
#MeToo
activists. It suggests that the Party fears that this movement could weaken Party control. It makes me think of the mid-1970s in Taiwan under KMT dictatorship when...1/n
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As Xinjiang’s massive administrative detentions demonstrate, trying to eliminate arbitrary police detention in China is a Whac-A-Mole game—just as you think a form of detention is gone, others keep popping up again under slightly revised names.
China ends extra-judicial detention system that had allowed authorities to hold sex workers for up to two years without trial.
Of course, as
@jeromeacohen
notes, officials can still detain suspects for up to 15 days under administrative punishments law.
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What is taking place in Hong Kong’s Magistrates’ Court regarding bail hearings for the 47 democratic politicians is already an unthinkable travesty of justice and apparently is about to get worse. Read more on my blog.
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Today’s events take the veil off the charade for all to see. The NPCSC is increasingly exercising direct “comprehensive control” over Hong Kong. At its two previous sessions it declined the opportunity to take direct action...1/n
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Melissa Chan has written a terrific article that deserves the widest circulation. I feel more comfortable using “totalitarian” rather than “Fascist,” if only because I don’t want to exclude Stalin’s USSR from the field.
@melissakchan
1/n
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Here is an excellent story about the transformation of June 4th in Hong Kong. Most sobering is the fact that this year there have not even been the usual organizational applications for the police to approve the holding of any public memorials. 1/2
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Sending this “gang of four” diplomats to brawl like thugs suggests how sensitive their mission was.
The attackers from the Chinese embassy:
Consul General Zheng Xiyuan 郑曦原
Consul Gao Lianjia 高连甲
(unknown, probably a young staff)
Counselor Chen Wei 陈伟
Deputy Consul General Fan Yingjie 范映杰
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We also need to focus on the implications of the forthcoming law for
#HongKong
research & teaching abt China. Presumably all HK academic institutions now have to worry abt many aspects of their research, incl. cooperation with foreign academic institutions & publishers. 1/3
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Here is Josh Rogin’s terrific article in today’s Washington Post that says it all. I think Ms. Bachelet should resign or be removed from her UN High Commissioner’s position. At least as the price of remaining in office she should be pressed to…1/2
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The foreign universities invested in China—NYU included—should now collaborate in openly sharing their experiences & challenges, join in collectively protesting to PRC authorities as appropriate, and expose the realities of contemporary education in China.
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Having secured his unopposed “election” with minimum public outcry, John Lee has already begun to implement the even tighter dictatorship that his administration promises. Nothing could be better calculated than these arrests to offend the various...1/n
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Here are two photos of the distinguished Dean Hualing FU of HKU Law School and noted human rights scholar Professor Rowena He of the Chinese University of HK's history department in front of the statue that HKU seeks to remove from its campus on Wednesday after 24 years...1/3
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Two things that strike me about Xi’s closing speech. One is how bland and anodyne it is for the foreign audience. The other is that there is not a word of thanks to the dear departed leaders for their loyal services to the Party.
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This is an extraordinary report. If it is substantially accurate, the PRC is facing a crisis in law enforcement, ethnic policy and legitimacy in Inner Mongolia that will offer many comparisons with Xinjiang and Tibet. 1/n
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"China’s leaders are now overhauling the city’s electoral system to ensure only people it deems 'patriots' can govern Hong Kong."
Thank you to
@Reuters
for interviewing me for this important story.
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The new “rule of law,” enforced by Mainland police & their local minions, is “Do what we say and you will be fine and even happy.”
People will gradually lose even their freedom to be silent. Sadly, the time for benign optimism has plainly passed.
My blog:
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Another day, another Chinese human rights lawyer suffering years of arbitrary incommunicado detention and torture!
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Here is an article with potentially astounding implications for the PRC’s relations with the world. It deserves the attention of all who are concerned with international politics, economics, and law. 1/n
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#LiuXiaobo
's passing alerts the world, to an extent even greater than did the empty chair, to Chinese Communist Party’s inhumane oppression.
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Bravo for
@austinramzy
&
@ChuBailiang
for a superb job! I've raised the issue whether Xi Jinping should, at least in principle, be recognized as the leading candidate for the application of Magnitsky Act sanctions by the US Government. Here's persuasive supporting evidence.
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China is likely to enter another long period of severe dictatorship
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I hope that Paul Harris will soon be in a position to speak out freely about recent events in Hong Kong, including not only his own forced departure but also other quieter measures taken to silence the Bar Association. 1/2
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Bravo for the UK’s Jewish leaders for using this tragic day to point out the similarities between pre-1942 Hitler and today’s PRC in the treatment of a hated minority. 1/2
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It's shameful that the PRC has the nerve to convene such a farce to mark—and sully—Int'l Human Rights Day (Dec. 10), the second day of the “Forum”. This cynical charade should be exposed & the world told about the tragedy of human rights lawyers in China.
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It's been reported that Beijing plans to “reform” HK’s election system, expanding the membership in the local legislature and the Election Committee. This is the end of the political democracy envisioned by One Country Two Systems. Read more below.
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Here is an important op-ed by a distinguished Israeli surgeon and Matthew Robertson, a leading specialist on organ transplants in China. They impressively indict Chinese surgeons for horrific organ extractions from victims not yet dead.
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Here is a superb
@nytimes
story that is worthy of a Pulitzer Prize. It vividly and accurately summarizes the differences between the hopeful environment for improving government under law in 2003 and the dreadful situation since the ascension of...1/n
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Since Hong Kong has been silenced, there is no place in China where the June 4 Tiananmen slaughter can be publicly remembered. It is therefore more than ever incumbent on those of us still free to speak to do what we can to call popular attention…1/n
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...the continuing access that Navalny had to public opinion via various direct and indirect methods? What has happened to the outspoken public lawyer Gao Zhisheng, “disappeared” many years ago? We know what has finally happened to Xu Zhiyong and some of his...2/4
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(1/X) It is indeed great news that
#WangQuanzhang
has finally been allowed to return to Beijing and his family. Many who supported him and his human rights cause for five years will be moved by the video of the family reunion.
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For more than two decades Xu Zhiyong has been one of the greatest people in the China human rights movement - a moderate, yet imaginative and dynamic, legal and political reformer and scholar who has already served one long prison sentence. 1/2
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Here is the sad news of Lee Teng-hui’s passing. He was an extraordinary leader whose life marked many major transitions in Taiwanese life. He experienced and indeed embodied Taiwan’s modern history. 1/n
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The letter calls for an independent inquiry into police brutality, and if the Hong Kong Government continues to reject any effort in this respect, the letter calls on the international community to establish an international, independent inquiry mechanism instead.
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Here is the latest excellent analysis of Hong Kong’s deteriorating situation by Professor Michael Davis. He speaks for many in Hong Kong who are no longer free to inform us.
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Lao Dongyan, a Tsinghua law professor, recently published an extraordinary essay that was shared before it was quickly removed from WeChat. Many China-watchers will find it a worthy read. My analysis on my blog.
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The American people and the Chinese people are entitled to a serious explanation of the basis for the abrupt USG closing of the PRC Consulate. The brief and cryptic justification offered thus far is simply inadequate. 1/n
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Maya Wang’s Foreign Affairs article is marvelous and deserves the broadest attention. She draws upon the earlier work of Eva Pils and others, updates previous analyses and puts recent developments in the appropriate political context. Arbitrary...1/n
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In appraising the significance of a statute, one has to look beyond the words on paper and forecast their application in light of experience and the real context in which they are to be applied. This is especially true in the case of the PRC. 1/n
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Many people in China have been the victims of lawless enforced disappearances. I have been especially interested in the fate of the formerly famous PRC lawyer Gao Zhisheng. When formal criminal prosecutions including hideous torture failed to silence him...1/3
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Here’s an excellent CNN report. Xi Jinping’s most corrupting sin is the persistent effort to convince the world that the color black is white, that night is day, and that fiction is truth. Perhaps “processED democracy” is the closest term to reality...1/n
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What has happened to RTHK and Hong Kong is unbelievably nauseating. Reality is outdoing Orwell and Huxley day by day.
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I keep waiting for China’s Navalny. But no PRC court would allow a dissident to be heard by the public to the extent Navalny manages to speak out. The courts should be given some weight when we consider the distinction between Totalitarian and Authoritarian.
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Here are some quick comments that highlight some of the key points to be made about the new national security law for
#HongKong
, which bristles with legal issues. I've highlighted the major changes, which can be summarized under four categories.
Read here:
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The welcome immediate release of the two Michaels represents a PRC abandonment of its previous pretense that it was handling their cases in accordance with law and that the defendants were not the victims of hostage diplomacy. 1/n
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My latest piece:
The new legislation will likely dramatically alter life in
#HongKong
. Mass arrests could occur, well beyond the roughly nine thousand that have been made within the past year. Freedom of expression & other civil liberties will be curbed.
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Today’s attack will reignite civil war in Hong Kong, despite Covid-19 restrictions, and lead to the cancellation of the LegCo election unless the democratic forces see the trap that has been set for them & act in ways that cannot be seen to justify cancellation of the election.
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The forthcoming Democracy Summit is generating another round of debate over the meaning of democracy. It is always sad to see the worst dictatorships defend the right of the people of every country to determine their government while plainly denying…1/3
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Here's Josh Rogin’s important op-ed on recent Tibet developments. Amid holiday diversions and other China-related events, I missed its publication. It demonstrates how futile it is with the current Xi Jinping government to talk of “compromises” that...1/n
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Here is some meaningful support for HK. It’d be good if more support is on the way, such as an easing of immigration requirements and processes and some financial assistance to Hong Kongers who want to come to the US for possible permanent residence, etc.
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Saturday's mass arrests in HK, following the bold assertion by Beijing’s Liaison Office of comprehensive power over HKSAR, represent a stunning advance toward the Chinese Gov't's demolition of One Country, Two Systems in fact, if not in name.
My take:
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Following the arrest of
#JimmyLai
, it will be very important to try to observe the procedures in these new types of Hong Kong criminal cases. My thoughts on my blog:
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This is a marvelous, succinct and realistic analysis that should embarrass many others–not merely Ronny Tong–who blithely assure us that for Hong Kong this is indeed the best of all possible worlds. 1/2
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Here's a very sobering report on “tip-offs” in Mainland China. Yet it only scratches the surface of daily realities in Chinese law schools and apparently the situation is no better in teaching and research even in other fields as unlikely as medicine! 1/n
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Nathan Law’s speech to President Biden’s Summit for Democracy has been branded a violation of China’s National Security Law for Hong Kong. In accordance with the current repression in HK, President Biden might well be accused of himself violating...1/3
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For far too long major Western newspapers have refused to station regular staff reporters in Taiwan, contenting themselves with stringers and sending journalists from HK, the Mainland & elsewhere. NOW LET’S HOPE THAT SOME WILL TURN A VICE INTO A VIRTUE!
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Some ask, why speak out against the CCP if it doesn't change its behavior? I believe that the victims hope we will speak out though. Sometimes, of course, in the immediate, foreign protests do make things worse, regarding the victims and the policy that abuses them. 1/3
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[Thread] Obviously the current effort to enact national security legislation governing
#HongKong
is not Beijing’s preferred way but is a mark of desperation. 1/n.
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...public interest lawyer colleagues now serving long criminal sentences after extended pre-trial detention, but we do not hear from them. Of course, the PRC no longer pretends to have even Russian-style “free elections” that...3/4
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Here is an excellent CNN story by Nectar Gan that seems to unpack the mystery of Eileen Gu’s Chinese nationality. A colleague explained the FIS exception, writing that “Gu’s sport is governed by the International Ski Federation (FIS), and although FIS…1/n
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Here is an op-ed worthy of everyone’s time. I hope this puts pressure on Biden’s people. Of course, if Martin Lee is convicted, as expected, the court may try to soften the severe public and international reaction by sparing...1/2
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It's interesting that retired HK Court of Final Appeals Judge Henry Litton, who has often written articles sympathetic to Beijing’s position on local legal matters but had been rather silent of late, has returned to the struggle with a strong...1/n
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What is happening in Xinjiang?
Why is the international academic community largely silent about the current atrocities???
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This SCMP report is a “riot” in itself. Apparently democracy is an infectious ideology. It may soon be unsafe for the Hong Kong Government to send free speech offenders to prison. Nowhere is safe from them. What next? Cut out their tongues? 1/2
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It tempts me even to learn more about the early days of Hitler’s gradual takeover of the formerly democratic German government. 3/3
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...might require the appearance of opposition and any suggestion of independent media opinion. 4/4
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Bravo for Brescia! At a time when we are focused on the emerging 6th Plenum Chinese Communist Party Resolution on History and the struggle of HK’s new M+ Museum for freedom of expression for Ai Weiwei and HK people, Brescia has not only put itself...1/2
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Here is a disturbing report that is more than imaginative speculation.
#HongKong
’s Secretary for Justice is expanding the effort of Hong Kong elite to prepare local and world public opinion to accept a new and special ”national security court” in HK.
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This is an extraordinary report. One has to admire the prompt and skillful handling of the challenges in both Beijing and Shanghai by the Australian diplomats on the scene and by their Ministry at home. 1/n
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Here is my latest op-ed on the important case of former Shanghai lawyer-turned-citizen-journalist Zhang Zhan. Thank you to
@SCMPNews
for publishing it.
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Here is yet another step toward increasing the similarity between HK’s criminal justice system and the highly repressive one in mainland China. PRC criminal trials are rendered a sham for many reasons. One of the foremost is the customary refusal to...1/n
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It is too early to adequately evaluate the outcome of the Meng Wanzhou extradition case. However, the PRC’s actions in this case have revealed for all that the criminal justice system is cruel and arbitrary in many respects. More on my blog.
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This impressive and important effort deserves attention.
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Dr. Jiang’s illegal detention at his home is worse than the usual police and Party lawless detention, since he has reportedly also been “medicated” in ways that have destroyed his mental capacity.
Doctor who exposed Sars cover-up is under house arrest in China, family confirms
Exclusive: Dr Jiang Yanyong’s movements restricted after he wrote to authorities about 1989 Tiananmen Square protests
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Here is an excellent piece by Tom Mitchell in
@FinancialTimes
that will make people focus on the PRC’s version of how a country’s totalitarian rulers “disappear” people who know too much and cannot be trusted to keep silent. This is not a new...1/n
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Here is an excellent op-ed by Wang Xiangwei, who is always worth reading. He is writing not from some remote Western capital or even Hong Kong but from Beijing, where is he is well-plugged in to elite thinking. 1/n
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Here's a helpful
@hrw
review of the mysterious case of the “HK 12” still secretly held in Shenzhen. I've been told that there's a Chinese language report in a mainland paper that the group has now been formally “arrested”...1/n
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After torturing Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi, two of China's greatest human rights lawyers, for almost two years, the PRC finally appears ready to bring them to secret trial, probably between Christmas and the New Year to minimize foreign publicity.
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In an effort to humanize herself and bid for public sympathy, Carrie Lam seems to be making herself more ridiculous. If she doesn’t understand politics, how can she be sure she is right? 1/n
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My congratulations and best wishes to President Tsai
@iingwen
as she begins what so many of us hope will be another successful term.
As
@ChingteLai
& I prepared to take the oath of office, I reflected on the responsibilities of my second term & the urgency of our mission. I am more determined than ever to fulfill that mission, & lead
#Taiwan
on the path to greater democracy, prosperity, peace & security.
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U.S. should impose Magnitsky Act sanctions against China’s human rights violators
#JiangTianyong
#WangQuanzhang
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Here is a brilliant and sobering analysis of the recent conviction of the very able and courageous barrister, Ms. Chow Hang-Tung. This is not the first case that suggests the HK judiciary’s vaunted reputation for competence and independence urgently…1/n
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With a threat emerging to the Winter Olympics, the PRC apparently gave permission for Peng to chat with the IOC but not with others. It would be good to know the content of the conversation and under what conditions the conversation was agreed to. 1/n
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This video may only enhance the suspicions about Jack Ma’s situation. It probably is an attempt by the PRC to quell the growing speculation. It's far from persuasive and resembles the kind of televised statements detained suspects are often forced to...1/n
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including prominent protest supporters, to conduct the exercise. It could be led by a distinguished retired judge who enjoys public confidence but could be led by some other leading figure.
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