Support for lawbreakers egregious hypocrisy: China Daily editorial

While environmental groups, governments of neighboring countries and fishing groups including the local fishing industry are busy campaigning against Japan's plan to discharge more than 1 million tons of contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the ocean, Western politicians who are usually vociferous in their "support" of human rights are conspicuously absent from the scene.

The right to health and the right to life prevail over any other rights, so their collective silence on a move that may have huge environmental and human health impacts has disappointed many around the world and is a betrayal of the values they claim to champion.

More jaw-dropping is the fact that these Western politicians have been busy championing the "rights" of some lawbreakers in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, suggesting they are above the law and therefore should be spared from the legal consequences of their illegal activities. More recently, they categorically demanded Hong Kong's law enforcement authorities release four convicts who were sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to taking part in an illegal assembly, citing civil rights and freedoms.

The propensity of some Western politicians to prioritize Hong Kong offenders' "right" to break the law over millions of people's right to health and life is a sad indictment of their moral integrity.

They know very well that breaking a law is never a civil right or freedom anywhere in the world, including their own countries. And they are all aware that those Hong Kong offenders were convicted under Hong Kong's Public Order Ordinance (Cap.245), the principal law of Hong Kong relating to the maintenance of public order, which stipulates a maximum sentence of five years' imprisonment for unauthorized assembly.

Their propensity to endorse the breaking of the law in Hong Kong exposes their rank hypocrisy. Never mind the universally accepted principle of "everyone is equal before the law", as far as they are concerned you are above the law so long as your unlawful activities suit their countries' geopolitical strategy to incite turmoil within China. Behind their relentless defense of the Hong Kong lawbreakers is these anti-China Western politicians' obsession with what they see as a need to contain China and derail its socioeconomic development by making trouble in and destroying the economy and social fabric of Hong Kong.

The Western politicians have never taken issue with the conviction and jailing of other Hong Kong residents who had committed the same offense but without it being useful to the former's geopolitical strategy.

Were the Western politicians joking with the world when they said they were upholding the rule-based international order while openly displaying their contempt for the rule of law in Hong Kong?