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Are these heroes, worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize? Apparently so. Photo: Sam Tsang
Opinion
Public Eye
by Michael Chugani
Public Eye
by Michael Chugani

Kangaroo courts in Hong Kong and Joshua Wong for the Nobel peace prize. At least, according to one newspaper

What baffles me is if these lawyers and legal academics in the opposition camp believe we now have corrupt judges who jail people solely for their political beliefs, why remain in the profession?

Kangaroo courts have arrived in Hong Kong. Our once fearlessly independent judges now huddle in secret with top government officials to brainstorm trumped-up charges against our young Davids of democracy who battle the Goliath that is communist China.

Judges churn out prisoners of conscience, making them heroes worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. Fiction? No. Fact, as told by The New York Times.

Its opinion page editor Bari Weiss dismissed as bogus the unlawful assembly charges against Joshua Wong Chi-fung, Nathan Law Kwun-chung, and Alex Chow Yong-kang. Bogus? Well, maybe scaling the security fence at government headquarters and inciting others to follow, which left 10 policemen injured, is not illegal assembly but youngsters practising climbing skills.

Perhaps Weiss didn’t know the trio actually did that, or it could be the venerable paper’s fact-checkers were asleep at the wheel. I suggest they check out the plentiful internet footage of what really happened on September 26, 2014. It may help clear Weiss’ mind.

I am sure The New York Times can afford to send her here to visit the jailed Wong, Law, and Chow to ask why they dutifully served their community service sentence instead of appealing against it as a bogus charge.

But that kind of factual reporting is now too little, too late. Our judges have already been tarred and feathered as lackeys, not only by the Western media but by many in our own legal profession.

What baffles me is if these lawyers and legal academics in the opposition camp believe we now have corrupt judges who jail people solely for their political beliefs, why remain in the profession? Why represent clients in kangaroo courts?

Just quit and fight the good fight in the political arena against tainted judges. Maybe the big bucks our barristers charge trumps any moral conviction against kangaroo courts.

I ask this not to defend the communist regime that rules us or to criticise Wong, Law, and Chow, but why appeal if the three believe our judges are biased anyway? Why not serve out their sentences?

That way they can become Nobel Peace Prize candidates as Weiss suggested. Surely, it’s worth spending six months behind bars to be in the same league as Malala, who took a Taliban bullet in the head, and Liu Xiaobo, who spent much of his life in jail and died while still being incarcerated.

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