Tim Cheung (@TimCheung)

"When pro-democracy newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai goes to trial in Hong Kong on Monday facing national-security charges, he will be appearing in a court system that includes #BeverleyMcLachlin – #Canada’s longest-serving Supreme Court chief justice. #SebastienLai, the publisher’s son, is among those calling on Ms. McLachlin to reconsider her decision to remain a part of the legal system at a time when China is cracking down on democracy and dissent. 'The legal system’s not siloed', he told The Globe and Mail. 'It all links together, right? Do they want to be part of a court system that has 1,500 #politicalprisoners, who are imprisoned for things that are very much legal in their home country?' A member of Jimmy Lai’s international legal team, Jonathan Price of London, is also urging Ms. McLachlin to reconsider. 'The decline of the rule of law is constant, precipitous, ongoing', he said, adding that the question of whether to remain needs to be reviewed every few months. Two days ago, the House of Commons voted unanimously to call on Hong Kong authorities to release Mr. Lai and cease prosecuting him and others under #Beijing’s national-security law, imposed on Hong Kong in 2020. But Ms. McLachlin, who is 80 and has resisted previous calls to step down, says she is staying...When she joined the Hong Kong court in 2018 as one of its 10 foreign, temporary members, the city still had a free press and freedom of expression and protest. But a little more than two years later, China established a national-security law criminalizing subversion in Hong Kong, and arrested Mr. Lai, publisher of Apple Daily, a pro-democracy tabloid and the city’s most popular newspaper. He has been in jail ever since and at 76 is facing a minimum 10-year sentence if convicted, and a maximum of life. The newspaper closed down. Since then, two British judges have resigned, and another British judge chose not to accept renewal, citing the national-security law. The trial of Mr. Lai, a #British citizen, on charges of sedition and collusion with foreign forces (including by his tweets, and interviews he posted with foreign politicians, according to Human Rights Watch) is a pivotal event in #Beijing’s crackdown...The trial will be in front of three judges, who in national-security matters are handpicked by Hong Kong’s chief executive, with the advice of Beijing, according to #BenedictRogers, co-founder of #UK Hong Kong Watch, a rights monitor...'#JimmyLai is really emblematic of the dismantling in #HongKong of press freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of protest, all of which were rights which he was very courageous in exercising', Mr. Rogers said." https://www.facebook.com/ChinaCreepingAuthoritarianism/posts/pfbid02vPVFaVRnq8V2YBVeJDS4SBMH3SzeBydpixhuNmyMJynmJa9ee92peAyvDueT9ixdl