Nowadays the entire government just keeps harping on consolidation of the rule of law. The Secretary for Justice said proactive promotion of the rule of law is needed; the Secretary for Education turned brainwashing into education of the rule of law; the Chief Executive mentioned in the Policy Address that any deeds not in agreement with the government are unlawful, sheathing all government’s evil doings in the rule of law.

The words are said, but to no avail, because most Hong Kong people can tell right from wrong. Government’s arguments, simply sophistries, are just too lame to touch anyone. And what the government does keeps on running counter to what it says. Verification of facts cannot be beaten by any argumentative tongues, let alone wild and empty talks. The so-called original intention behind the extradition amendment bill last year was itself a lie, which gave rise to such serious ramifications. Now Carrie Lam has gone so far as to say she “didn’t do anything wrong”!

The SAR government utters one thing, but does the opposite, and keeps jabbering about the rule of law, which is made the pretext of its every evil act. In actuality, it is causing irreversible damage to the rule of law. In the past few months, the selective law enforcement leveled at targeted individuals the government aimed at buffeting has shown its double standard and racking its brains to wade through the laws and ordinances, even misrepresent the original purposes behind them, and manipulate the judicial procedure only in an attempt to conduct despicable political persecution at the expense of the fairness and predictability of the law.

The big difference between the criteria for imposing penalty in previous similar cases and that for sentencing Agnes Chow, Joshua Wong and Ivan Lam is discrepant with consistency of the law. Saying that a “spontaneous” and unprompted movement abundant in divergent appeals, which involved so many people who were bombarded with so much information from all sides, was a campaign led by them, has the government overpraised them or dwarfed itself? It even blamed the trio for all the happenings in the process literally not controlled and mobilized by them. If this is not political persecution, what else is? This is not rule of law, but “violence of law”!

The three charges made against Joshua Wong indeed concern the same event, but end up consecutive sentences of imprisonment, which is tantamount to throwing him in jail three times for one single incident. Next time, will the regime rack its head to dig out remnants of the draconian colonial laws and even the Great Qing Legal Code to indict him on ten charges so that he can be sentenced to a ten-year imprisonment? Does the government know what it did will be inducing a lot of Joshua Wongs out there?

Apple Daily has been showing support for democracy and watchdogging the government, which is an inherent duty of a media outlet. The regime is always picking on its founder Jimmy Lai at every turn, which has demonstrated the evil motive behind plain as the nose on your face! Now it has gone so far as to make a big fuss over a minor issue by preposterously naming its subleasing a little corner of the Apple Daily headquarters to an affiliated institution fraud, which is in reality commonplace practice in various commercial institutions and social organizations. That the government picks on Apple Daily is exactly the abovementioned political persecution by selective law enforcement leveled at targeted individuals. Worse still, a judge designated to try cases related to the National Security Law has been put on duty to hand down a sentence to take the defendant into custody for more than five months before any trial for a lawsuit that does not necessarily result in imprisonment, even if the defendant is barely convicted. How can the SAR government convince people by reasoning anymore? Is it still qualified to talk about the rule of law?

And the government has really got way off the beam in freezing all the bank accounts of Hui Chi-fung’s and his family members’. Alternatively, it could have issued a circular order for the arrest of Hui, but there is no ground for the government to freeze his assets. Freezing even his parents’ and wife’s bank accounts amounts to the government illegally abusing its official power. About a week ago, Carrie Lam cried from house-tops in her Policy Address that the status of Hong Kong as a financial hub needed to be consolidated! Who else will still have faith in the financial system in Hong Kong?

In only a week, the government has nakedly displayed time and again what it really means by harping on consolidation of the rule of law! The government has taken the lead to defy the law and damage the rule of law, exemplifying with what it has done in front of the entire world that the rule of law in Hong Kong is no longer the criterion for delineating liberty. So long as the authorities deem anyone unpleasant to the eye, they can get him/her persecuted in the name of the rule of law.

This is sham rule of law and genuine violence of law. Given that everyone has witnessed the so-called rule of law already out of shape, how many of them are still convinced the rule of law should be respected? After all, who is generating uncertainties and sowing the seeds of turmoil for the future of Hong Kong? Hong Kong people must keep such a bewildering mess in mind!

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