CCP Operatives Finally Punished After What They Did

(RightWing.org) – Two Chinese enforcers have been jailed for attacking a Falun Gong site in Hong Kong. It’s taken two years for a court to punish them for their crimes — but it’s finally happened. A Hong Kong court has defied the Communist Party and sent its operatives to prison.

2 Pro-CCP attackers in #HongKong were charged with 2 counts of criminal sabotage on #FalunGong’s “truth-clarification” sites in 2021.

Magistrate Frances Leung Nga-yan of the Kowloon City Magistrates’ Court ruled on April 21 that the two were found guilty. https://t.co/Qw7K2YSQnn

— The Epoch Times – China Insider (@EpochTimesChina) April 24, 2023

China’s communist regime doesn’t like any religion much, but it seems to have a particular problem with Falun Gong. The religious movement, which emerged in the early 1990s, now has tens of millions of followers — and most of them are in China. In 1999 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) designated Falun Gong as a “heretical sect” and started trying to eradicate it; members were arrested, sent for “re-education,” and even killed. Decades later, the persecution is still ongoing.

In 2021, Falun Gong information booths in Hong Kong started to suffer from sabotage; the booths and their contents were slashed with utility knives. The attacks were frequent. In one week in April 2021, the group counted 10 separate incidents at six different booths. Surveillance videos led police to three suspects, who were all arrested. It turned out one of them, Hu Aimin, had already been arrested for damaging Falun Gong booths in 2020. That time, a court gave him a suspended sentence, and the magistrate praised him for his patriotism. However, the magistrate who heard the second case seems to have hung on to more of his independence from the CCP. On April 21, Hu and co-defendant Chow Wing-Iam appeared in front of Magistrate Frances Leung Nga-yan, who told them that in Hong Kong, it’s forbidden to victimize a group with which you don’t agree. Magistrate Leung sentenced Hu to 15 weeks in prison and Chow to nine weeks.

The case highlights the tensions inside Hong Kong. Under the 1997 UK-China deal that transferred the former British colony back to China, Hong Kong was supposed to keep its existing legal system. China is steadily eroding that system’s independence, but it seems some magistrates are still willing to push back. Hu and Chow are open supporters of the CCP and were carrying out the party’s anti-Falun Gong campaign. Now a court has told them that’s unacceptable in Hong Kong — and the party won’t like being defied.