Jimmy Lai Chee-ying (C), instigator of the Hong Kong riots, leaves a police station after being granted bail in south China's Hong Kong, Feb. 28, 2020. (Xinhua/Lui Siu Wai)
Hong Kong is a mature society under the rule of law. There is no reason for Lai to remain at large. He must bear due legal responsibility for his actions.
HONG KONG, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, widely known as one of the "black hands" behind the months-long unrest in Hong Kong, was arrested Friday on charges of participating in an unlawful assembly and criminally intimidating a journalist.
The arrest proves that anyone who challenges the rule of law and attempts to mess up Hong Kong will ultimately be brought to justice.
Persistent violent protests and riots had turned the once prosperous and stable region upside down, with law and order trampled and honest residents living in fear. Tourists were scared away, the economy slipped into recession, and the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people were in peril.
On Aug. 31, Lai orchestrated and took part in an unauthorized assembly on the Hong Kong Island. Rioters besieged buildings of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government and the Legislative Council, vandalized and set fires to public facilities and metro stations, and hurled petrol bombs and erosive liquid at police officers.
The illegal assembly on that day became a watershed event. Hong Kong had since then come under the shadow of a black terror. Fatal weapons were more frequently used by rioters, an elderly sanitation worker was killed, a resident was set on fire, and university campus were laid to waste.
Lai and others have cooked it up. They colluded with external forces to plot a Hong Kong version of "color revolution," attempting to use social disturbance to undermine the "one country, two systems."
As a media tycoon, Lai did not shoulder his due responsibilities but abused the power to confound right with wrong. The tabloid he owns incited violent activities, glorified rioters and vandalism, and smeared police officers. A number of young people, even teenagers, were misled, brainwashed and incited to participate in street violence.
Lai blatantly attacked the central government and advocated the so-called "Hong Kong independence," which went far beyond the freedom of speech guaranteed by the Constitution and the Basic Law, challenged the bottom line of the "one country, two systems" principle, and seriously undermined China's national sovereignty.
In fact, Lai himself failed to uphold what he claims to be "freedom of press." At one rally, he surprisingly came up to a journalist, shouting out obscenities and threatening him.
Lai and others did not stop inciting instability in Hong Kong in the face of hard-earned positive signs over the past three months. Many newly-elected district council members appeared to care more about political issues than the well-being of their voters in neighborhoods. A very small proportion of medical staff went on strikes at the crucial point of fighting the novel coronavirus, raising politically-inclined requests at the cost of the safety of millions.
Hong Kong is a mature society under the rule of law. There is no reason for Lai to remain at large. He must bear due legal responsibility for his actions.
We have every reason to believe that the trial of traitors like Lai has only just begun. ■