Early in the morning, the guards come for Jimmy Lai, a 76-year-old publisher who has been in solitary confinement for the last three years. He is fed a prison breakfast, handcuffed, and taken in a van to court, where three judges and a prosecutor, who between them represent the flower of the English legal tradition, are conducting a show trial.
Hong Kong has seen its share of tragedy and farce since the British left in 1997, but the prosecution of this case is a new low in its descent into darkness under Chinese control and the perversion of the rule of law by people who were trained to uphold it.
