Jimmy Lai Chee-ying is now in the dock facing charges of colluding with foreign forces under the national security law and a separate one for sedition. It will be interesting to hear the evidence, but even before that, the Western press just wants to put Hong Kong on trial.

Is Lai guilty or not? I have no idea. Its not my job to decide or guess. Let the trial judge decide.I am an old-fashioned hack and prefer the British common law tradition of avoiding interfering with the courts business. But you know with the pundits, hacks and politicians of the nations in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, there is no respect for such niceties when it comes to their concerted and coordinated propaganda war against an enemy.

So Lais case has, predictably, been weaponised, and their politicians and editorialists have gone into high gear. Their reporters, or if you prefer, foreign correspondents, now cant even write a straight news report about Lai without competing to out-editorialise each other. That is, of course, par for the course. There are two reasons for this, both terribly obvious.

One is, as we have said, typical of the Five Eyes and a few of their European allies to weaponise human rights and democracy in such foreign cases. Thats the international community or the world you usually read about in such reports. In reality, the rest of the world couldnt give a damn about Lais case.

The other is to distract the world from their own assaults on journalists and their collusion with Israel and with the United States full criminal implication in war crimes for supplying the weapons in murdering journalists at an unprecedented rate and scale.

And then there is, of course, the case of Julian Assange to distract the world from. He has done far greater good for the whole world, and thats precisely why he has to be silenced. Serious efforts are now being made to nominate Lai for the Nobel Peace Prize. Assange will never get a Nobel, however deserving, just like no Western politicians and their allies will ever be put on trial in The Hague, for the most obvious war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Some US politicians want to sanction Hong Kongs judges and prosecutors. The Canadian parliament, the US State Department and British Foreign Minister David Cameron have called for Lais immediate and unconditional release. The rest of the world should call for the same with Assange. A prisoner exchange, what say you?

Meanwhile, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 64 journalists and media workers have been killed since the onset of the war in Gaza.

The CPJ is also investigating numerous reports of more journalists being killed, missing, detained, hurt, or threatened, and of deliberate destruction of media offices and journalists homes.

Journalists across the region are making great sacrifices to cover this heartbreaking conflict, said Sherif Mansour, the CPJs Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator.

Those in Gaza, in particular, have paid, and continue to pay, an unprecedented toll and face exponential threats. Many have lost colleagues, families, and media facilities, and have fled seeking safety when there is no safe haven or exit.

Israel is censoring journalists with extreme prejudice, and the Five Eyes and some European governments such as Germanys are wilfully turning a blind eye. Soon there wont be independent reporters alive covering whats happening on the ground, and Israel can say whatever it wants without anyone challenging them. The same august newspapers in the US, Britain and Australia, which have been loudest about Lai, a former media tycoon, have all been so embarrassingly criminally quiet about the murders of their international colleagues on a massive scale. Go figure! Thats Western press freedom for you.

When it comes to 2019 and all the protests and riots that lasted almost nine months in Hong Kong, context matters. And context is precisely whats missing in most Western media reports about Lais case and the city in general.

All the mayhem and riots, however destructive or violent, are either ignored or referred to as pro-democracy protests. Every rioter and arsonist was by miracle a pro-democracy activist or protester.

Imagine the one-day Capitol riot, branded by the US government as an insurrection, taking place off and on for over nearly a nine-month period, and you have an idea what actually happened in Hong Kong. Foreign-collusive elements? I would love to hear about them in court.

Just for one day, US authorities have reacted against those accused with vengeance. And these same politicians and officials are criticising Hong Kong. Can these people be any more shameless?

First published in SCMP 19 December 2023