JOINT STATEMENT OF CALD & LI

We cannot allow this conviction to mark the end of Hong Kong

Joint Statement of CALD and Liberal International

The conviction* by a Hong Kong court on Thursday 1st April 2021 of Liberal International (LI) individual member and Prize for Freedom laureate, Martin Lee along with other pro-democracy leaders, has sent shockwaves through democracies around the world.

With 82 year-old Mr Lee, Hong Kong’s “father of democracy”, facing five years imprisonment, the LI bureau and the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD) recognise this act of judicial brutality as a ruthless and calculated tipping point in China’s barefaced annexation of the Special Administrative Region.

That the Chinese-backed authorities have abused the very legal system, designed to protect the people of Hong Kong and which Mr Lee has spent a lifetime strengthening as a lawyer and politician, in the presence of international diplomats is contemptible.

We know that the people of Hong Kong harbour a tireless democratic spirit and we stand with them and will fight for the democratic principles and policies stated in Hong Kong’s Basic Law and the Sino-British Joint Declaration.

Beijing needs to understand. They have crossed a line and we will not let this go.

*Mr Lee was arrested for his supposed participation in what the court described as “unauthorized assembly” in the peaceful pro-democracy protests of 2019.