22/08/2026

SATURDAY | AUG 22, 2026

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HK court convicts Tiananmen vigil group leaders

Pakistan ex-PM Imran taken back to prison ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan is medically fit and back in jail after being examined by a team of doctors in a hospital, the country’s information minister said yesterday, a move that had not been widely anticipated after the former premier was allowed to leave prison to have his health checked for the first time since February. Imran, 73, was transferred to a hospital on Thursday night for medical examination, following a Supreme Court order, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said. His supporters lined the streets of the capital Islamabad, showering flowers on the vehicle widely believed to be carrying him to the hospital. Aired live on Pakistani television, the images stood in stark contrast to how the country’s broadcasters had covered Imran in recent years, tending to not even cite the highly popular cricketer-turned-politician’s name until Thursday night. Public perception that Imran was moved back to prison forcefully by authorities could spark new outrage among his supporters and potentially escalate tensions and street protests. Imran’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), did not immediately comment on the claim that he was medically fit. Senior party members had publicly interpreted the Supreme Court order as meaning that Imran would remain hospitalised. But Pakistan’s Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Tariq Fazal Chaudhry told ARY News on Thursday that “if doctors decide that his treatment at the hospital is necessary, he will be admitted. If they opine that he can be treated in jail, he will be sent back.” “A team of qualified doctors, including an ophthalmologist, a cardiologist and a physician conducted a detailed examination of him and declared him medically fit,” Attaullah said yesterday. In its order on Tuesday, the Supreme Court told authorities to transfer Imran to the Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad within two days and allow him access to a medical panel that includes his personal physician. Attaullah said Imran had been examined at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, rather than the private Shifa hospital, due to a “security situation created by PTI workers” along the planned route. – Reuters Sydney police charge man in ‘spying’ case SYDNEY: Australian police charged a man with foreign interference yesterday for allegedly seeking to pass intelligence about Ukrainian military activities to Russia. The 27-year-old Russian-Australian citizen underwent “military style” training in Russia and later joined the Ukrainian armed forces, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett told a news conference. Police allege he travelled to Russia for the training in October 2024 before returning to Australia, where he “maintained contact” with individuals he believed were linked to Moscow’s intelligence services. He travelled last year to Ukraine, where he enlisted in the country’s armed forces and “gained access to information relating to their military personnel, units and locations”, police allege. Barrett said he then “provided, or attempted to provide, information obtained in Ukraine to individuals he believed were acting on behalf of Russian intelligence services”. “It is alleged this conduct created a risk to the safety and security of Ukrainian military personnel,” she said. “We don’t want Australia to become a safe haven for people who are undertaking foreign interference on behalf of other countries.” The man has not been identified and was unemployed, Barrett said. –AFP

o Pair face up to 10 years’ jail under security law

HONG KONG: The High Court here yesterday convicted two pro-democracy activists of inciting subversion, highlighting their use of the phrase “end one-party dictatorship” in their political activities. Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41, were part of a group known for organising annual vigils marking Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro democracy protesters. Lee and Chow, the former chair and former vice-chair of a now-disbanded group, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, could be sentenced to as much as 10 years in jail under a China-imposed National Security Law (NSL). The judgment issued by three government approved national security judges said it was the defendants’ repeated peaceful use of the phrase “end one-party dictatorship” rather than other political actions or beliefs that had breached the law. The defendants “intended to cause others to lose confidence in the CCP by stirring up hostility and causing division, so as to achieve the objective of undermining the fundamental basic system”, the judges stated in a 16-page ruling summary, referring to China’s ruling Communist Party. “Even though they believed and envisaged that the acts of resistance may not necessarily involve the use of violence or threat of violence, those acts would be in breach of the NSL, and carry a risk of long-term imprisonment.” Public commemorations of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests used to be legal and tolerated in Hong Kong and were seen as a symbol of the Asian financial hub’s relative freedom compared with

Former Alliance committee member Lau Ka-yee (left) and Medina Chow Lau Wah-chun (Chow Hang tung’s mother), leave the court after the verdict. – AFPPIC

charge. Another former chairman of the group and also a former chairman of the city’s largest opposition Democratic Party, Albert Ho, 74, pleaded guilty to the same charge. Mitigation hearings for Lee

Some foreign envoys were present in court, including diplomats from the European Union and the United States. The National Security Law

mainland China. They were effectively outlawed in 2020 with the enactment of the National Security Law. Prosecutors had argued that the primacy of the Communist Party was enshrined in article 1 of the Chinese constitution. Defence submissions that the defendants genuinely believed they were acting within the law given Hong Kong’s freedoms of speech were rejected by the judges. “They just refused to pull

significantly expanded the powers of both the Chinese and Hong Kong governments within Hong Kong, following months of sometimes violent pro democracy protests that rocked the Asian

and Chow are due to start later this month. Chow, a barrister, was among the most prominent of Hong Kong’s younger generation of emerging pro democracy activists. She began attending Tiananmen Square protest vigils when she was a primary school pupil. Lee’s wife, Elizabeth Tang, said outside the court after the verdict that it was “most unjust”. “Of course there’s no

Chow

Lee

back from the brink and were bent on embracing the resistance line of the Alliance to the very end,” the judges said.

surprises but still I’m disappointed and I’m angry because I don’t think he has committed any unlawful (acts),” Tang said. – Reuters

financial hub in 2019. Lee and Chow, who have been detained since 2021, had pleaded not guilty to the

Japan executes pachinko parlour arsonist TOKYO: Japan hanged yesterday a man convicted of a 2009 arson attack on an Osaka pachinko parlour that killed five people, with the prisoner as usual informed shortly before his execution. Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi said. “As minister of justice, I ordered the execution of the death sentence after giving the matter the most careful consideration possible,” Hiraguchi told reporters.

G7 countries to still use capital punishment, and surveys suggest there is strong support among the Japanese public. A Japanese government survey in 2024 found that 83% of respondents considered the death penalty “unavoidable”. Support for abolition, however, rose to 17% from 9% five years earlier. The Justice Ministry told AFP last year that Japan carried out one execution in 2022, three in 2021, three in 2019 and 15 in 2018. There were around 100 people on death row. Amnesty International said in May that recorded executions worldwide rose 78% last year to 2,707. – AFP

He also said that Takami, 58, was only informed of his impending execution yesterday morning, as is the standard practice in Japan. Broadcaster NHK said he was hanged in Osaka. “This is because there is concern that notifying the prisoner before the execution date could destabilise their emotional state, and it is believed that doing so might actually cause them undue suffering,” Hiraguchi said. Japan and the United States are the only two

It was Japan’s first execution since Takahiro Shiraishi, the “Twitter killer” was put to death in June 2025. Sunao Takami doused the pachinko arcade, a mechanical game involving thousands of small steel balls, near his home with petrol and set it on fire, killing four customers and one employee. “This incident resulted in extremely serious consequences ... and sent shock waves through society and instilled a deep sense of fear,”