Hong Kong’s highest grossing Chinese language film of all time is a Hong Kong-set courtroom drama exploring themes of power and justice in a city where many feel both have been abused in recent years. A Guilty Conscience, the directorial debut of the Hong Kong screenwriter Ng Wai-lun, tells the story of a single mother wrongly accused of murdering her daughter and the legal battle to clear her name. Released in January 2023, it earned HK$115m (£11.6m) at the Hong Kong box office last year, making it the highest grossing…
Tag: Law
Taiwan considers joining ICC to deter potential China invasion
Taiwan’s government is considering joining the international criminal court, in part to increase deterrence of a Chinese attack or invasion. Supporters also say it would help universalise the international legal system, which has a low presence in Asia, and increase Taiwan’s global participation at a time when Beijing works to keep it as isolated as possible. The court was established by the Rome statute, which defined four core international crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression. It has operated since 2002, prosecuting dozens of alleged war…
Chinese dancing frog goes viral doing the worm
An anthropomorphised frog has joined celebrity live-streamers and social media commentators among China’s ranks of influencers, as a trend that began with street sellers in Chinese cities takes on a new life online – and raised questions over who, if anyone, owns the intellectual property rights to a dancing amphibian. Alternatively known as a “frog seller” or “frog influencer”, the meme involves a person in a frog suit with a blue neckerchief selling frog-themed products such as balloons and toys. The magic ingredient for going viral on social media, though,…
China rights activist goes on trial for ‘inciting subversion of state power’
Li Qiaochu, a human rights activist detained for nearly three years in China, has gone on trial in Shandong province charged with “inciting subversion of state power”. On the eve of the trial the chairs of the US congressional commission on China called for Li’s unconditional release, citing reports that the labour rights and feminist activist needed urgent medical treatment. Li’s charges carry a sentence of up to five years, or potentially longer if she is deemed a ringleader. Li’s lawyer Li Guobei said she had been blocked from entering…
Daniel Duggan asks to be released from jail and detained at home as he fights extradition to US
An Australian pilot accused of accepting money to illegally train Chinese military personnel has denied he is a flight risk and described himself as a model prisoner in a formal request to be released into home detention. Daniel Duggan has written to the acting New South Wales corrections commissioner from Lithgow maximum security prison where he is being held in isolated custody while he fights extradition to the US. Duggan, a former US marine who became an Australian citizen, has been charged with four offences in the US including conspiring…
China to rule on appeals in case of detained human rights lawyers
A Chinese court is to rule in the appeals of detained human rights lawyers Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong, as Ding’s wife called on China’s top judge to “rectify the miscarriage of justice” in their case. Ding and Xu are leading figures in China’s thwarted New Citizens’ Movement, a loose network of activists and lawyers concerned with human rights and government corruption. In April, the men were sentenced to more than a decade in prison for subversion of state power, in a ruling that was criticised by the UN’s human…
Xi critic who fled on jetski to South Korea will die if sent back to China, says father
The father of a Chinese dissident detained in South Korea said his son will die if he is sent back to China, a country he escaped from on a jetski in a life-threatening journey in August. A court in South Korea will decide on Thursday the fate of Kwon Pyong, who is charged with violating the immigration control act. Kwon, 35, pleaded guilty and appealed for leniency as prosecutors requested a sentence of two and a half years, which experts say is unusually harsh. In the first public comments by…
Travel firms urged to halt trips to Uyghur region over China rights abuses
Uyghur advocates have called on western tourism companies to stop selling package holidays that take visitors through Xinjiang, where human rights abuses by authorities have been called a genocide by some governments. The request comes as China reopens to foreign visitors after the pandemic, and as its leader, Xi Jinping, calls for more tourism to the region. A report by the US-based Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), released on Wednesday, said western tourism to the region risked supporting the normalisation of Chinese government policies that were “intended to destroy the…
China is state most dangerous to its own citizens’ civil rights, report finds
China has been ranked as the worst country in the world for safety from the state and the right to assembly, in a human rights report that tracks social, economic and political freedoms. The Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI), a New Zealand-based project, has been monitoring various countries’ human rights performance since 2017. In 2022, HRMI started tracking freedom of religion and belief for the first time. China also scored worst on this indicator, although the pilot study only covered nine countries. HRMI concluded that on several measures China was…
Hong Kong court rebuffs effort to dismiss Jimmy Lai national security trial
Hong Kong’s high court has rejected an attempt by lawyers acting for the jailed pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai to have his national security trial dismissed. The court ruled on Monday that the argument the trial may appear to be biased had “no merits”, and gave the proceedings, which are scheduled to start in September, the green light. The legal team for Lai, a former media mogul who was arrested during Beijing’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2020, had argued that the fact his trial would be presided over by judges…