Thread by @NuryVittachi

Report from yesterday's court hearing #HongKong

1) Andy Li was one of the official leaders of the “Stand With Hong Kong” group, along with Finn Lau, while Chan Tsz-wah liaised behind the scenes with the de facto leaders, Jimmy Lai and Mark Simon, prosecutors said.

2) Much of the slanted, highly negative coverage of Hong Kong was cash-backed, the court heard. Professional consultancy firms were hired and paid for. Rallies were organized. “Publication fees of newspaper articles” were quietly covered from the fund.

3) A significant portion of the cash went to anti-China lobbying groups in the UK. Li “engaged” British anti-China activist Luke de Pulford in a campaign to damage Hong Kong’s rule-of-law agreements with the international community, the court heard yesterday.

4) The scheme organized an expenses-paid trip for anti-China campaigner Lord David Alton, Luke de Pulford’s employer, to visit Hong Kong as part of the campaign.

5) Lord Alton told the UK parliament that claims that the Hong Kong police had murdered people at a Hong Kong underground railway station were “credible” (although all “murdered” people were shown to be alive).

6) Andy Li gave Samuel Chu of the Hong Kong Democracy Council, a Washington-based pro-US anti-China group, a list of 143 names of people in Hong Kong, the Sing Tao newspaper reported.

7) Right wing politicians in the US were also very much in the loop. As a result of the campaign, the United States and nine allies suspended the rule-of-law agreements with Hong Kong that protected the public from international crime.

8) Commentators have long warned that the US wanted to kill the “one country two systems” policy to reduce Greater China’s number of seats in international organizations. In August 2020 US Customs announced that all Made in Hong Kong goods should be restamped Made in China.

9) Hong Kong alone among developed economies, lacked an anti-collusion charge until last year. Mark Simon left Hong Kong shortly before the law was passed and since then has spent his time speaking negatively on the city as an “independent commentator” on CNN and other media.