2024-11-19
31 分钟As the world reacts to Hong Kong’s imprisonment of 45 pro-democracy activists, Steve Tsang joins Georgina Godwin to discuss Beijing’s defence of the landmark sentencing. Then: the first globally extinct bird species from mainland Europe and North Africa and West Asia with Stephen Moss. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
You're listening to the Briefing, first broadcast on the 19th of November, 2024 on Monocle Radio.
Hello and welcome to the Briefing, broadcasting to you live from Studio 2 here at Midori House in London.
I'm Georgina Godwin.
Coming up on today's program is this.
Finally the end of democracy in Hong Kong.
As 45 activists are jailed, we'll ask what this landmark sentencing means for the city state then.
Hello, Georgina.
I'm Fernando Gusto Paseku and I'll look at some of the G20 highlights in Rio de Janeiro.
We'll have a roundup of business news from Bloomberg and Hear why the US's biggest budget airline has filed for bankruptcy protection.
Plus, that's a recording of the slender billed curlew, a sound that will never again be heard in real life as experts declare the species extinct.
All that right here on the Briefing with me, Georgina Godwin.
Today, Hong Kong's high court jailed 45 pro democracy activists for up to 10 years.
This comes after a landmark national security trial that's decimated the city's once vibrant democracy movement and attracted ire from the West.
Well, I'm joined now by Steve Tsang, who's director of the China Institute at soas, the University of London.
Steve, many thanks for coming on the program.
This all goes back to the 2020 National Security Law.
Can you just recap for us?
Well, the 2020 National Security Law of Hong Kong effectively impose a parallel judicial system in Hong Kong, so that cases which are deemed to be of national security relevance are being tried in a different system from the old common law systems in place in Hong Kong.
Therefore, the guilty verdicts of all those accused are almost guaranteed.
The only question is how heavily they would be sentenced for the protest they conducted.