You go to jail.

You go to jail.

Everyone goes to jail!

Welcome back to China Uncensored,

I'm Chris Chappell.

The Hong Kong government has just made

a huge mistake.

Um, yes, but sending political activists to prison

is not exactly the mistake I'm talking about.

The mistake is:

If you're going to secretly undermine

the freedoms of your people,

you have to do it in secret!

Like, if you're coming home at 3 am

after sneaking out to a party:

get your friend to drop you off down the street,

and climb back into your room

through the window.

I'm just saying.

That's just common sense

and is not based on personal experience, Mom.

Anyway, Hong Kong authorities

are still kinda new at this,

which makes them inexperienced and foolish.

Because when the Hong Kong court

sentenced these three political activists

to prison on August 17,

it really let the cat out of the box:

The Hong Kong government

is undermining the freedoms of its people.

Of course, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam

defended the move.

"Rights and freedoms of Hong Kong people

are protected under the Basic Law.”

Ah yes, Basic Law.

That was the agreement the CCP and the UK

made ahead of the 1997 handover.

Under the One Country, Two Systems principle,

the Basic Law guarantees Hong Kong

a variety of rights and freedoms—

even rights and freedoms denied

to people in the rest of China.

Anyway, go on Ms. Lam.

“But the exercise of these rights and freedoms...

is not without limit.”

So what limits did three dangerous criminals violate?

Well, Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, and Alex Chow

were influential leaders of the 2014 Umbrella Movement.

“The 2014 protests—

known as the Umbrella Movement—

were triggered after Wong and his colleagues

stormed the city's government headquarters.

They were later found guilty of unlawful assembly

and were sentenced to community service.”

Just to clarify,

“storming government headquarters” in this case

meant jumping police barriers

in front of a popular protest location

outside the central government offices

known as Civic Square.

Anyway, go on.

“But that wasn't enough for the department of justice

which applied for a review....

Joshua Wong will spend the next six months

behind bars.”

So Joshua Wong and the other two less famous guys

were sentenced to community service.

Which they served.

And then the court decided to sentence them again—

this time to 6 months,

8 months,

and 7 months respectively in prison.

Why?

Well, the Hong Kong Department of Justice

decided that the punishments weren't harsh enough,

and that they wanted a review of the sentences.

Of course Hong Kong Chief Executive

Carrie Lam will assure you,

Beijing had nothing to do with the decision.

"Our courts are exercising judicial powers independently,

free from any interference.

So any allegation that in these particular cases

that judges in the Court of Appeal

have made decisions under political interference,

again, are totally unfounded.”

That's like when you sneak out at night

and then try to convince your parents the next day

that the lump in your bed that night

was you all along,

and totally not the pillows from the guest bedroom.

What's interesting here

is that Lam defends the judges

as being politically unbiased,

but there are signs that the Justice Department itself

wasn't politically unbiased when deciding

to “review” the sentences.

For one, it's highly unusual for them

to review the sentences in the first place.

There are reports that Secretary of Justice Rimsky Yuen

overrode his own prosecutors

in order to get those harsher sentences—

even though his prosecutors didn't want to do it.

Interestingly, Rimsky Yuen is also a member

of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference,

the terribly-named rubber-stamp advisory body

to China's rubber stamp legislature.

Being in the CPPCC

is a marker of status and influence.

And you can get kicked out

for not toeing the Party line.

But I'm sure he made his decisions

about the Hong Kong activists

completely without any political agenda.

So when the courts handed down the prison sentences,

their ruling talked about the importance

of deterrent sentences.

That is, by severely punishing these three people,

they would make Hong Kongers not want to protest...

sorry, I mean, “unlawfully assemble”

in the future.

Which worked incredibly well.

In fact, the sentencing reinvigorated the movement

for rights and freedoms in Hong Kong—

with over twenty thousand people taking to the streets.

There's more uproar over this than for other recent events

that eroded Hong Kong's freedoms.

Like allowing Chinese police to patrol in Hong Kong.

Or saying the joint declaration Hong Kong Basic Law

is founded on no longer has meaning.

Or kicking out democratically elected

pro-democracy lawmakers.

Again.

As you can see,

the Chinese Communist Party's influence over Hong Kong

has been getting really blatant lately.

So the question is why?

This carries serious risks for the CCP.

It clearly shows that the One Country Two Systems policy

that the CCP promised the UK

is being thrown out the window.

And that makes it hard for anyone

to trust the CCP about any agreement.

As Financial Times puts it,

“If a bilateral treaty,

signed by two heads of state

and registered with the UN,

can be unilaterally ignored,

what is stopping China from trashing

any other treaty it does not like?”

So why would the CCP take this risk?

Well, one factor is that the CCP

doesn't care as much as it used to

if the lack of independence

hurts Hong Kong's economy.

In 1997,

when the UK handover happened,

Hong Kong made up 20% of China's GDP.

It was also the only real way for China

to access Western investment.

But now, 20 years later,

other parts of China have grown so much

that Hong Kong's contribution to China's GDP

has fallen from 20%

to just 3%.

So why bother appeasing Hong Kongers with pesky freedoms

unless those freedoms have limits?

Another factor is that the government of the UK,

and every other country,

still wants to do business in with China—

even if they're not super happy

about this latest move.

I mean yeah the CCP is terrible

and breaks its promises,

but...cha-ching!

So put on that awkward smile

and move on.

And here's another factor:

After the 2014 Umbrella movement was over,

many of the young people

who participated in the protests

tried to continue to change the system from within.

For example, Joshua Wong and Nathan Law

founded a political party so they could

officially join Hong Kong's democratic process.

Nathan Law even won a seat

in the legislature last year,

along with many other new

pro-democracy lawmakers.

Unfortunately, Law was kicked out of office

last month for adding a Gandhi quote

while taking his oath of office.

That's another topic.

But now, their long prison sentences

trigger a rule that disqualifies them

from running for office for the next five years.

So the Hong Kong government

is effectively shutting them out of the political process.

It seems like a side effect,

but I think it's actually one of the main reasons

the Hong Kong government did it.

By disqualifying and shutting out pro-democracy legislators,

the pro-Beijing government is more likely

to be able to pass laws that the CCP wants,

but Hong Kongers have resisted for years,

like the patriotic education law,

or Article 23,

that anti-subversion law that would let police

search people's homes without a warrant.

But here's the thing:

This move is extremely stupid!

What happens when you force people

to operate outside the system?

When you show them that protesting

is the only way to prevent the government

from stomping all over your rights

in order to appease the Communist Party?

You get this!

Twenty thousand angry people protesting.

And we're probably going to see

more protests in the future—

because the Hong Kong government's decision

tells the people one thing clearly:

Civil disobedience is now the only way to make

effective political change in Hong Kong.

Now, as for Joshua Wong,

Alex Chow, and Nathan Law,

they've already started their prison sentences,

although their lawyers say they will appeal.

Hopefully prison won't harden them too much.

Joshua has already shaved his head

and talked about taking graphic design classes.

Good luck, kid.

Now, I personally admire these guys,

and for viewers who feel the same,

why don't you head over to Twitter,

and send them some words of support

from the China Uncensored 50-cent army.

Their twitter handles are in the description below,

and their accounts are being managed

by friends while they're in prison.

Don't forget to tag @chinauncensored

so I can see your tweets as well.

And as always,

let me know what you think

in the comments below.

Coming up after the break,

if only getting political prisoners out of China

were as easy as getting money out.

When I was in Hong Kong last December,

I was lucky enough to sit down

with Joshua Wong for an interview.

We talked about his plans

for the future of Hong Kong,

and we even sang a song of angry men

from my favorite musical, Les Mis.

Of course, this is before I realized

Joshua Wong was a dangerous criminal.

So click here on the left

to watch that interview now.