RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-cracks-down-in-asias-once-freest-city-11556750356

For most of my life I have advocated change in the world’s most closed, repressive nation: North Korea. As a South Korean, my priority has been peace and freedom on the peninsula I call home. But I cannot ignore the erosion of freedom in what was once one of Asia’s freest cities: Hong Kong.

There used to be parallels between South Korea and Hong Kong. Both are economic “tigers,” with basic freedoms and an openness to the world, living in the shadow of authoritarian regimes to the north.

But now there is a divergence, as Hong Kong is being subsumed into Xi Jinping’s China in the midst of its worst crackdown on human rights since the Tiananmen Square massacre 30 years ago.

Last week Hong Kong authorities handed prison sentences to nine leaders of the pro-democracy Umbrella Movement. This is merely the latest alarming example of suppression in the city, in which civil rights are steadily declining.

To be sure, Hong Kong cannot be compared to totalitarian North Korea. Though Hong Kongers are denied universal suffrage, there is still some freedom of expression and a generally fair legal system. Since Britain handed over control to China in 1997, Hong Kong has functioned under the principle of “one country, two systems” with a high degree of autonomy. It was for years the only place in China where people could demonstrate, speak out in the press, or criticize the government without fear of arrest. All that is now in jeopardy.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273581/germanys-hypocrisy-israel-joseph-puder

On May 2, 2019, Israel will observe Holocaust Remembrance Day. It would be a good time to re-examine the Jewish state’s relations with the Federal Republic of Germany, formerly Nazi Germany, a nation that perpetrated the greatest crime in history against Europe’s Jews, known as the Holocaust. Naturally, many Germans wish the memory of the Holocaust and its German perpetrators to go away and be forgotten. Young Germans do not wish to carry the burden of guilt for the most heinous crime in modern history.

Monetary reparation paid by the Germans to Holocaust survivors for the stolen properties of European Jews notwithstanding, reality today is that Berlin has not done more than lip service to “solidarity with Israel” and its claims of “Israel’s security being Germany’s raison d’état.” Germany has been a major contributor to anti-Israel resolutions at the UN General Assembly and other UN agencies. Germany moreover, has aided and abetted the genocidal Islamic Republic of Iran in evading U.S. sanctions.  Germany’s non-governmental agencies (NGO’s) supported by the German government fund various anti-Israel groups in the Palestinian Authority and in Israel itself.

According to the Gatestone Institute, Chancellor Angela Merkel has pressured other European Union states to refrain from moving their embassies from Tel Aviv to Israel’s capital – Jerusalem. Merkel not only rejected the Trump administration’s move to relocate the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, she has authorized the allotment of $100 million to the Palestinian Authority’s allocated budget of $300 million, for payment to Palestinian terrorists to kill Jews.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14166/hong-kong-dark-days

The continued defiance of Hong Kong’s people in the face of Chinese repression is inspiring resistance in Taiwan.

“In the early 1980s the ‘one country, two systems’ concept was created for Taiwan, not for Hong Kong,” said Ma Ying-jeou to Al Jazeera when he was Taiwan’s president in September 2014. “But Taiwan has sent a clear message that we do not accept the concept.”

Xi Jinping, the current Chinese ruler, once held the Hong Kong portfolio in the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee. He certainly knows that one of the signs of Chinese regime failure is trouble on the periphery, and he is determined that the open defiance in Hong Kong does not spread to other areas far from the center of Chinese power. Xi has no effective response to Hong Kong, however.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Hong Kong on Sunday to protest planned changes to the city’s extradition law. Many believe new rules facilitating the sending of suspects to China would effectively allow Beijing to grab people at will and thereby completely control the city. “You will be screwed,” said a marcher, a law clerk, to Reuters.

The turnout was high — organizers said 130,000 people took part — in part because the demonstration followed the sentencing of democracy activists for their role in the massive “Occupy Central” protests in 2014. On Wednesday, a lower court handed out prison terms of between eight to 16 months to four of the “Umbrella Nine.” Three others received suspended sentences. One person was given 200 hours of community service.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14163/turkey-armenian-genocide-anniversary

It is estimated that between one and one and a half million Armenians perished.

The government-funded Turkish Institute of History just announced that it is preparing to publish 25 volumes “refuting Turkey’s involvement” in the Armenian Genocide.

“[I]t’s obvious that the recognition and condemnation of genocides are the most effective tools for the prevention of new genocides.” — Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, February 13, 2019, ArmenPress.com

April 24 marked the 104th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide by Ottoman Turkey. It was on this date in 1915 that Armenian intellectuals and community leaders were arrested in Constantinople and later murdered. It is estimated that between one and one and a half million Armenians perished.

Since then, Turkish authorities have aggressively denied that the genocide even took place, or that Turks carried it out, and penalized those who dare to assert otherwise.