Today's news: In Sumatra seven months in prison for a comedian for a joke about Mohammed; 21-year-old Afghan Manizha Talash, who fled the Taliban, at the Olympic Games in the refugee team; Hong Kong outlaws and withdraws passports from six activists who fled to the UK; Two Indians recruited by the Russian army killed in the war in Ukraine; New attack in Yerevan against synagogue.
The paper pays tribute to the victims on the 35th anniversary of the massacre. In an editorial, it cites an increasingly "restrictive" reality in which even praying may “arouse concern”. In Beijing, access to Tiananmen Square is restricted while the web is censored. Taiwan pledges to respond to "authoritarianism" with "freedom” while a rally is scheduled in the capital. Canada and the United States are set to host memorial ceremonies.
While China is systematically erasing the memory of the brutal repression of student protests on 4 June 1989, 14 prominent participants of that movement are still behind bars, rearrested for their struggle for democracy. Chinese Human Rights Defenders issued an appeal for their release. In Hong Kong there is concern for Jimmy Lai's health.
The bishop penned his thoughts about the "sensitive” date, which is taboo in Hong Kong, in an article published yesterday by the diocesan weekly Sunday Examiner. In it, the bishop remembers the “life sapping event that took place 35 years ago” in Beijing on 4 June 1989. Although impossible to forget, he suggests to look at it through the eyes of “God’s unconditional love” who forgives even those who “are not yet courageous enough to ask for it.
In the “Hong Kong 47” trial, the Court convicts defendants accused of organising primaries in 2020 ahead of elections to the local legislature to win a majority that could vote against then Beijing-appointed Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s budget. Scores of people are in jail for this "crime". Meanwhile, Jimmy Lai’s trial is still underway, but the verdict is a foregone conclusion.
New arrest order was issued for jailed lawyer Chow Hang-tung and five other people who tried to use Facebook to keep alive the memory of the victims of the student massacre 35 years ago. This comes a few days before the 4 June anniversary. The people charged face up to seven years in prison for “resisting memory rewriting.”
