Who gets to live in public housing flats heavily subsidised by Hong Kong taxpayers? Low-income families, of course. Can low-income people afford HK$250,000 worth of jewellery? You figure that out. Last week, a public housing tenant called the police to say burglars had stolen jewellery worth a quarter of a million dollars from his Fu Tai Estate flat in Tuen Mun. The media reported it as a burglary. Surely, it's much more than that? How can he afford such pricey jewellery if he lives in public housing? If he can afford it, why is he in public housing? The Housing Department's website states that to qualify for public rental housing a person's monthly income cannot exceed HK$9,670 and assets cannot exceed HK$221,000. This rises progressively to a household income limit of HK$23,910 and assets limit of HK$455,000 for a family of four. Even if the burgled flat housed four people, would they really keep over half of their assets in jewellery in a public housing flat? Something stinks. Just last week, the Ombudsman exposed widespread abuse of public housing. It's a well-known fact the authorities lack the political guts to kick out wealthy tenants even though there's a three-year wait for thousands of families who actually deserve public housing. Public Eye cannot afford jewellery worth HK$250,000 but has to pay tax to finance well-off cheats living in heavily subsidised housing. Why have our overpaid officials ignored this outrage for so long?

Political persecution, or press freedom? Depends on who we're talking about. If Jimmy Lai Chee-ying's democracy camp mouthpiece muckrakes against his political foes, it's press freedom. If Beijing mouthpiece muckrakes against pan-democrats, it's political persecution, or worse still, white terror. We saw that again last week when blamed former University of Hong Kong law dean, Professor Johannes Chan Man-mun, for the faculty's drop in research ranking. The paper had used official figures to back up its claim. Chan, a democracy camp leader, called the report political persecution. Did he or anyone else from the democracy camp call it political persecution when hounded Franklin Lam Fun-keung for allegedly using insider information as an executive councillor to profit from property sales, a claim dismissed by graft-busters as unfounded? Did the democracy camp label it white terror when Lai's publications targeted top government officials? Of course not, because that's called press freedom. But going after the democracy camp, as the media did over Lai's secret donations to democracy leaders? Well, that's persecution.