{"id":53837,"date":"2022-10-26T06:43:16","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T13:43:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=53837"},"modified":"2022-10-26T10:43:41","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T17:43:41","slug":"jimmy-lais-fraud-case-verdict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=53837","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Lai\u2019s Fraud Case Verdict"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>10\/26\/2022 08:48 AM EDT<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Ned Price, Department Spokesperson<\/p>\n<p>The United States condemns the October 25 verdict against Hong Kong democracy advocate Jimmy Lai, founder of the Apple Daily newspaper, on spurious fraud charges.<\/p>\n<p>We remain deeply concerned about the deterioration in protection for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the systematic dismantling of Hong Kong\u2019s autonomy under the National Security Law (NSL). \u00a0These include increased efforts to wield the NSL to suppress independent media, to silence dissenting views, and to stifle freedom of speech.<\/p>\n<p>Though Lai\u2019s fraud trial was not on NSL grounds, local authorities nonetheless imposed the NSL\u2019s more restrictive legal procedures for this non-NSL case. \u00a0These actions undermine the PRC\u2019s obligations under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which is a binding international agreement, to uphold Hong Kong\u2019s high degree of autonomy and protected rights and freedoms.<\/p>\n<p>We urge PRC authorities to restore respect for press freedom in Hong Kong, where a once-vibrant independent media environment has all but disappeared. \u00a0Efforts to stifle press freedom and restrict the free flow of information undermine Hong Kong\u2019s democratic institutions and hurt Hong Kong\u2019s credibility as a business and financial hub.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>10\/26\/2022 08:48 AM EDT &nbsp; Ned&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53838,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53837\/revisions\/53838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}