Benny Tai on trial for law-breaking, not 'civil disobedience'

On Monday, Benny Tai Yiu-ting faced trial in a local court in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

As always, some of his fellows made use of the chance to speculate his "theories", such as "law-breaking for justice", "civil disobedience" and "no rioters, only tyranny".

None of them stands. First, Tai has surely broken the law. He was found guilty in the 2014 "Occupy Central" confrontation, imprisoned for that, and now he is suspected of "subverting the regime" and faces trial for that.

But his law-breaking activities serve injustice, not justice. In "Occupy Central", those organized by Tai and his fellows blocked traffic, attacked the police with bottles and umbrellas, and even built simple barricades with iron and wood. Their violence further escalated into riots in 2019 that led to casualties. Tai must have a unique definition about "justice" that he breaks the law.

Second, his "civil disobedience" is precisely about opposing everything pertaining to his motherland and home city. His advocated "disobedience" is not for correcting any policy, but purely opposing for the sake of opposing, which made him an easy tool of anti-China forces both within and abroad.

Third, his "no rioters, only tyranny" has double standards. Those rioters reciting his words "no rioters, only tyranny" on the street fighting the Hong Kong police hailed the Washington police in the US capitol riot and blamed the "rioters" on Jan 6, even though they are much more violent than the latter.

That's because Tai has his boss, the US National Endowment for Democracy and its affiliated National Democratic Institute, which funded him in his research. Tai himself at least met NDI council members twice during "Occupy Central" to discuss their further moves.

So Tai is never the "saint" that some of his fellows boasted him to be. He is a home-hater funded by outside forces. Justice will be done and anyone breaking the law in Hong Kong will receive his or her deserved penalty.

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