This is John Batchel, speaking with colleague Mark Clifford, the author of a new book, The Troublemaker, about Jimmy Lai, a man who came from very few circumstances, and became an very successful retail seller and then publisher in Hong Kong in the late 20th century into the 21st century until the persecution and

the brutality and the recklessness of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party.

Other editors at Apple Daily are very successful now defunct publication in Hong Kong

and how they are kept in jail without any

understanding of when they can leave despite the fact that they pled guilty and are ready

to be sentenced. Mark Cliford, the troublemaker is the book. Besides Jimmy, six of my other colleagues at Apple Daily are in jail.

They've all pled guilty.

They're waiting for their sentencing.

Their sentencing is they're hostage to Jimmy's trial for reasons that I don't completely understand.

I mean, the testimony in his trial is over.

They've said they want to plead guilty.

I think one of the hardest things about being a prisoner is just the uncertainty.

You don't know if you're going to be in prison, you know, a day or the rest of your life.

And the fact that the Hong Kong government, a place that still claims that it holds to rule of law

and all the common law traditions and inherited from its 156 years of British colonialism,

the fact that the Hong Kong government won't even do the basically human decent thing,

the legal thing of sentencing people who pled guilty is just speaks to their cruelty.