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The national security trial of Hong Kong's famous activist publisher Jimmy Lai entered its second day Tuesday, with judges expected to rule by the end of the week on his lawyers' bid to throw out a sedition charge that has been increasingly used to target dissidents. Lai, 76, was arrested in August 2020 during a crackdown on the city's pro-democracy movement following massive protests in 2019. He faces a possible life sentence if convicted under a national security law imposed by Beijing. He was charged with colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiring with others to put out seditious publications. His landmark trial tied to the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily that Lai founded is widely seen as a trial for press freedom and a test for judicial independence in the former British colony, which was promised to have its Western-style civil liberties remain intact for 50 years after returning to Chinese rule in 1997. After Lai walked into
The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad has arrested four activists of the proscribed Popular Front of India (PFI) from Panvel in neighbouring Raigad district, an official said on Thursday. Those arrested include a local member of the banned outfit's state expansion committee, a local unit secretary and two other workers, he said. The ATS had specific information about a meeting of two functionaries of the PFI and few workers in Panvel, even as the organisation has been banned by the Government of India, the official said. Accordingly, an ATS team conducted a search in Panvel, located about 50 km from Mumbai, and apprehended the four PFI activists, he said. After questioning, all the four were placed under arrest in a case registered at the Kalachowki unit of the ATS in Mumbai under section 10 of the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, the official said. Further probe into the case is on, he added. The government had last month banned the PFI and several of its associate