Ezra Levant celebrates GB News’s launch, a UK channel founded by Andrew Neal that quickly became the top-viewed network, surpassing the BBC, with journalists like Mercy Merocchi and Avi Yamini challenging cancel culture and critical race theory. Leftists preemptively attacked it as racist, forcing advertiser boycotts—though some, like Money Supermarket, reversed course—while China’s crackdown on Apple Daily and Hong Kong protesters reveals a global free-speech crisis. Under Biden, Western moral authority weakens: China’s repression surged post-Trump, yet the U.S. leader misnamed Putin and failed to push back, mirroring Canada’s censorship laws. Yamini warns of an authoritarian trap spreading, with Hong Kong’s democracy activists facing exile and Western regions risking new restrictions, like Alberta’s COVID measures or a potential "new variant" lockdown in September. [Automatically generated summary]
Hello my friends, today I want to tell you an amazing story of an attempted cancel culture mob in the UK and how the guy they were trying to cancel is fighting back and maybe he's going to win.
I'm watching in real time.
I'll keep you up to date and I'll even have a follow-up report tomorrow.
I'm riveted.
So that's the podcast today.
But before I let you get to that, I want to invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus, which is the video version of this show.
You also get access to video by exclusive video by Sheila Gunnery, David Menzies, Andrew Chapatos.
It's all for eight bucks a month, which I think is pretty reasonable, you know.
And you can get that at rebelnews.com.
Okay, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, leftists in the UK try to cancel a brand new news channel even before it launches, but they're fighting back.
It's June 17th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government is because it's my bloody right to do so.
This last weekend, a brand new TV network launched in the UK by the name of GB News.
GB stands for Great Britain, of course.
And I can tell you from my time covering the trials of Tommy Robinson that the UK media is even worse than Canada's.
I tell you, it's true.
I know you don't believe me.
I think I might have told you once the story of how a BBC journalist literally contacted the police about my journalism asking for me to be arrested.
He demanded that they investigate me.
Don't let me go on a tangent here, but I was also in court live tweeting a trial.
That's what I do.
And a rival journalist literally passed a note to one of the judges in the middle of the trial asking the judges to kick me out for what I was live tweeting.
They actually stopped the trial.
The judges stepped out.
They read the note.
Then they came back in and told the little snitch that tweeting is permitted.
And they got back to the trial.
Conservative Journalists: A Rare Breed00:04:44
It's insane over there.
That's how bad the media party is in the UK.
They literally wanted to have me arrested and thrown in jail.
They actually called the police.
They actually interrupted a trial.
This wasn't during a lockdown or anything.
It's not that I wasn't wearing a mask.
This was pre-pandemic.
I was literally just in the court typing.
And the BBC, absolutely atrocious, the worst of the worst.
You think the CBC is bad?
That's $1.5 billion a year of left-wing extremism.
Well, the BBC is £5 billion a year.
That's £8.5 billion Canadian dollars.
Imagine that.
If the CBC had six times as much funding as they do, imagine how they'd smother and destroy everything else.
They're just so awful.
Now, the BBC is so vast.
There are a few journalists within it.
You can count them on one hand.
Who accidentally might be called conservative.
Andrew Neal was one of them.
He's had a lot of different media jobs in the UK, editing several newspapers, very senior guy, started another TV station for Rupert Murdoch.
So he's a senior guy.
I first came upon him after the terrorist attack on the Bataclan nightclub in Paris.
I just saw this guy on TV with a rant.
Here's a short clip of that.
I'd never seen him before, but he was a pretty senior guy even then.
take a look.
Even in all, welcome to this week, a week in which a bunch of loser jihadists slaughtered 132 innocents in Paris to prove the future belongs to them, rather than a civilization like France.
Well, I can't say I fancy their chances.
France, the country of Descartes, Boulay, Monet, Sartre, Rousseau, Camus, Renoir, Berlioz, Cezanne, Gauguin, Hugo, Voltaire, Matisse, Debussy, Ravel, Sansong, Bizet, Satie, Pasteur, Molière,
Beheadings, crucifixions, amputations, slavery, mass murder, medieval squalor, a death cult barbarity that would shame the Middle Ages.
Well, IS or Daesh or ISIS or ISIL or whatever name you're going by, I'm sticking with IS as in Islamist scumbags.
I think the outcome is pretty clear to everybody but you.
I love that.
And I said, who is this fellow, Andrew Neal?
Anyways, he's always been an outstanding journalist, very rigorous, very fair.
Conservative, sure, but I've never seen anyone, I've never seen him give anyone a gentle interview, especially conservatives.
I think he's sensitive to that, so he almost goes extra hard on them.
Here's just an example.
This is him, I think, devastating Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister who calls himself a conservative.
Now, in this case, they're talking about a free trade deal and Brexit, but it really doesn't matter.
Look at this guy.
I'm going to play a minute of this.
As we come out to agree under GATT 24, paragraph 5B, that both sides agree to a standstill, a protraction of their existing zero tariff, zero quota arrangements until such time as we do a free trade deal.
And that would be one way forward.
And that would be very attractive.
What about, of course, it would be up to our friends and partners to decide whether they want to.
How would you handle it?
You talk about Article 5B in paragraph 3.
GATT 24.
Article 24.
Get the detail right.
Get the detail right, Andrew.
Article 24, paragraph 5.
How would you handle paragraph 5C?
I would confide entirely in paragraph 5B because that is...
How would you get round what's in 5C?
I would confide entirely in paragraph 5B, which is enough for our purposes.
No.
I thought you were a man of detail.
Well, you didn't know whether there was an arrow article or a paragraph, but enough of details in novels.
There's enough in paragraph 5B to get us agreement.
Yeah.
Andrew Neal is a conservative, but he is a journalist first.
And don't try to pull a fast one on him, eh?
Well, the great news is that when the BBC was done with Andrew Neal, when they were tired of him, when they were tired of an old white male, they threw him on the trash heap.
He didn't stay there.
GB News: UK Focus00:15:22
He, you know, started a rival TV network called GB News.
And my God, is it good?
It's obviously focused on the UK.
And so I'd say half of what they talk about is probably not going to interest people outside the UK.
But the other half, I think they're universal issues.
Cancel culture, censorship, I don't know, transgender extremism, taking a knee in sports, which is ripping up their soccer league right now.
Joe Biden, the pandemic, lockdowns, Iran, taxes, spending, borrowing.
All of those things are of great interest to us too.
To anyone in the Free West.
You can download the GB News app on your phone for free.
I did.
And I have to say, I'm sort of hooked.
I showed this clip on my live stream on Monday at noon.
But in case you don't watch that, if you missed it, check out this opening declaration by Andrew Neal.
Does this not get you excited?
Good evening.
I'm Andrew Neil, and this is GB News.
It's 8pm on Sunday, June the 13th, 2021.
Welcome to the launch of GB News, Britain's news channel dedicated to covering the news that matters to you and to giving a voice to those who felt sidelined or even silenced in our great national debates.
Because if it matters to you, it matters to us.
GB News will not slavishly follow the existing news agenda.
We're not a rolling news channel, nor will we be providing conventional news bulletins.
But on all of our programs and platforms, you'll always know what's going on and what the country is talking about.
We will broadcast news programs throughout the day that are appointments to view, built round passionate presenters with character, flair, attitude, opinion, and yes, a sense of humour.
They will concentrate on the stories that matter to you and that others are neglecting.
And even when we're covering the same stories as others, we'll come at them in a very different way.
We've put together a lineup of youth and experience, of familiar faces and fresh ones.
They come from all backgrounds and all parts of our country too.
Our team of national and regional reporters covering the whole of the UK is the backbone of GB News, embedded in communities they know because that's where they hail from, delivering the huge range of stories and voices that reflect the views and values of our United Kingdom.
What unites us is the firm belief that now is the time to do news differently.
We are committed to covering the people's agenda, not the media's agenda.
We will not lecture you or talk down, and nobody will be allowed to Hector.
Indeed, Hector has been banished from the studio.
GB News will not be yet another echo chamber for the metropolitan mindset that already dominates so much of our media.
It is our explicit aim to empower those who feel their stories, their opinions, their concerns have been ignored or diminished.
We are proud to be British.
The clue is in the name.
And while we will never hold back from covering our country's many flaws and problems, we will not come at every story with the conviction that Britain is always at fault, usually to blame when things go wrong, generally useless.
We won't forget what the B stands for in our title.
We will cover the good news as well as the bad, because even in grim times, there is much that is great and uplifting to report and celebrate about our country.
We will encourage debate and conversation to include voices you don't often hear on other news broadcasts.
We'll sometimes court controversy, but we want civilized discourse, not shouting matches, no matter how heated our discussions become.
And we like heated discussions, but we will always demand respect for opposing points of view.
We won't dwell much on the latest gossip of the Westminster bubble, which is too often obsessed about matters of no importance to anybody else.
We will puncture the pomposity of our elites in politics, business, media and academia, and expose their growing promotion of cancel culture for the threat to free speech and democracy that it is.
We'll be more concerned with what will raise prosperity and create jobs in our left-behind towns than what some overprivileged and ahistoric students decide to hang on their walls in Oxford.
Social mobility and a fair chance in life for all will matter more to us than the wasteland to nowhere that is identity politics.
And if you want fake news, lies, disinformation, distortion of the facts, conspiracy theories, then GB News is not for you.
Because in everything we do, we will be guided by the highest journalistic standards written into the contracts of everybody who works here at GB News.
Robust, even disputatious debate, of course.
A much wider variety of voices than you currently hear in broadcasting, certainly.
But never the promotion of matters we know to be untrue or the pushing of facts that are convenient to a viewpoint that may be convenient but not properly checked.
And when we do make mistakes, as we will, we will correct them quickly and without quibble.
Along the way, we hope to have fun.
We hope you will too.
GB News will aim to inform, inspire, and entertain.
We start the journey tonight.
We hope you'll join us because if it matters to you, it matters to us.
I'm Andrew Neal and this is GB News.
Isn't that great?
Well, I have enjoyed it.
It's only been a couple of days.
I'd watch it just for Andrew Neal.
He's on every night.
Here he is grilling the Tory Finance Minister.
They call him the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Take a look.
The manifesto contained a promise of the triple lock on pensions.
Does that promise maintain?
Yeah, that's very much our policy.
Yeah, but are you going to maintain it?
I mean, the triple lock, just for our viewers, is that pensions should be increased either by inflation or the increase in average wages, or by 2.5%, whatever is the higher.
Is that still government policy?
Of course that's still government policy.
And actually, if we look at what has that policy achieved, it has ensured that pensioner poverty is now far lower than it was when that policy was implemented.
That's why that policy was introduced.
So it's something that has actually delivered for pensioners.
Average wages are now rising by almost 6%.
It could be 8% by July.
So you're telling the people tonight that pensions will rise by 8%.
Well, I think formally, Andrew, and I have to be careful because I can't comment about fiscal policy outside of events, which you'll appreciate.
With regard to pensions upbringing, there's actually a statutory review that's carried out later in the year that sets the upbringing, which is then brought to public.
I promise though, I'm not sure.
You promised the triple lock and the triple lock.
Earnings are the highest of the three metrics in your manifesto.
So you're saying tonight that pensions will rise by about 8% if that's what average earnings are.
He's good.
He also grilled on how he's going to pay for Boris Johnson's net zero climate BS.
That was a hoot.
And it was painfully clear that this Chancellor of the Exchequer doesn't want to go down that green insanity.
GB News is a very diverse outlet, by the way.
I'm not talking about race in case you thought I was, although it is diverse that way also.
I'm talking about opinions.
Mercy Merocchi and Inaya Fuller and Aman are warriors in the battle against cancel culture and against critical race theory.
They are so good.
Oh, I followed them even before GB News snapped them up.
I wish we had a critical mass of pro-individualist thinkers like them in Canada.
They're the best.
Anyways, great start, great channel.
I have to make sure I don't spend too much time watching it because I live here in Canada.
Canada has been my number one concern.
I should say one more thing, though, just before I go on it.
Their opening night, which I watched on the app, I was blown away by how many ads they had on.
Almost too many.
Like, I almost had enough of the ads, but it's amazing.
And they were from all the big brands.
Now, some brands I don't really know about because they're UK-oriented, but you could tell they were very blue-chip, very professional ad campaigns.
For example, Amazon, obviously, just doesn't get any bigger than that.
Even green energy companies, beer companies, like very hip.
I don't know how it happened that they got so many great ads.
Sun News in Canada never got ads like that.
Fox News in America gets ads, but they're often from ideological supporters like the My Pillow Guy.
How did that happen?
Well, that's the thing.
I noticed one thing about GB News even before they were launched.
And this is part of a universal theme too, something that applies to us here too.
Even before they launched their first minute on TV, they hadn't said anything yet.
They were being denounced as racist and white supremacist and far right.
That's what they call the alt-right over there in the UK.
There were boycotts even before they said a word.
How does that even work?
Well, it works just fine.
If you're a fascist and censorship is the whole point of shutting someone up, it's not to debate them.
You want them to shut up.
So the best way to shut someone up is before they even get started.
Censorship isn't about what they said.
It's about who they are and who they aren't.
Well, the debut of the channel was a smash hit in the ratings.
GB News, literally on its first night, was the top-viewed news channel in the UK, even beating the BBC's all-news channel.
How did that happen?
Unless you think that was just some opening night curiosity, they did it again and they did it again.
It helps that they're getting huge and prominent guests like the finance minister I mentioned and other very important people in the UK and people with an international profile too.
But again, that's to their credit.
They're just good journalists.
They command that respect.
But the mob, the censorship mob works in funny ways.
I've seen it many times around the world in the US and Canada, in Australia too, even.
You may think you're brave.
And maybe you are.
But until you go through a mob, a Twitter mob, a cancel culture mob, you just don't know what it's like.
And maybe you're not up to it.
I don't know.
You have to go through it.
On Twitter, a zillion accounts, many of them anonymous, most of them just the equivalent of photocopies of a master account, start hounding you, surrounding you, chattering at you, claiming to be a customer of yours, claiming that they're going to stop being a customer unless you stop advertising with someone or stop supporting someone or fire someone or stop being friends with someone.
And they basically say, either you join with our pitchforks and torches mob and we're going to kill our target and you join us or you're the target.
Decide quickly because we've got a burning torch here and you've got a grass hut.
It's a kind of blackmail, a kind of shakedown.
Join us in the mob or the mob's going to get you.
And most woke corporations just capitulate.
And it's not even always a decision made by a real decider like the company president, but rather it's usually some hard left-wing millennial social media intern or whatever, or just someone who panics.
Look at this.
A company called Money Supermarket got some anonymous Twitter tweet by Shaza G8.
Who is Shaza G8?
Nobody.
They just literally set that Twitter account up this month.
They have less than 10 followers.
It's just a fake account to pester GB News advertisers like this.
How long do you plan to advertise on the awful GB News channel?
I'm really surprised a company like yours would want to be associated with them in any way.
I will be moving my business to another comparison site that isn't happy to fund GB News.
Boycott, a comparison site.
You don't even know what you're saying, do you?
Yeah, you liar.
You don't have an account with money supermarket.
You don't know what money supermarket is.
You're just a fake robot.
You're a troll.
But look at this.
Thanks for getting in touch.
We understand there are strongly held views on both sides when it comes to this topic because GB News is such a new channel.
We need time to fully understand it.
With that in mind, we've decided to pause our ad slots pending a review.
That's all it took.
That's all it took.
So it worked.
The boycott worked.
Some fake account with less than 10 followers just set up anonymous telling lies.
I will go to a different category company.
We didn't even know what money supermarket is.
And now you have money supermarket, whatever it is, thinking it gets to decide the political commentary on news channels.
How about stick to your money supermarketing, whatever that is?
IKEA was the worst, by the way.
Here's a Twitter account with 19 followers.
Hey, IKEA UK, as you're advertising on a right-wing news channel, we will not be buying from your website or stores in the near future.
Boycott GB News.
And IKEA, that Swedish furniture company, they jumped.
We are in the process of investigating how this may have occurred to ensure it won't happen again in future and have suspended paid display advertisement.
In the meantime, Dennis.
Hey, thanks, Dennis.
And they said this to another person on Twitter.
IKEA has not knowingly advertised on GB News.
We have safeguards in place to prevent our advertising from appearing on platforms that are not in line with our humanistic values and vision to side with the many people.
Dennis, what language is that?
You know, IKEA's humanistic values, right?
You know that IKEA was, you know, they were started by a Nazi, right?
Like an actual Nazi.
You could probably tell that, guess that by how hard it is to assemble the bloody things.
I mean, I'm not holding that against the company in 2021.
I have some IKEA stuff, but don't tell me about your humanistic values, you Nazis.
Even today, literally this week, just this week, they were fined a million Euros for spying on their own staff.
Super gross.
I wonder if they called it the Gestapo system in Ikea.
So gross.
But guys, they're humanists.
And you can tell they're humanists because they've set up stores all across Saudi Arabia where they stone gays to death and they don't let women drive or even go out in public without their man owner.
But they have humanistic values and they would never advertise with GB News.
Yeah, humanistic values.
But here's what's new.
And here's what I'm excited about.
And I know that Andrew Neal himself is planning to do a rant on this subject tonight.
Maybe I'll show you a clip about it tomorrow.
He's fighting back.
Look at this exchange with some green energy tycoon that got messed up in this.
So in a BBC story, this green energy guy made a bit of a smear.
Octopus is the company.
Octopus said it would only run ads in the future if the news channel proved, quote, genuinely balanced.
Context Matters00:05:08
Greg Jackson, the company's founder, said it did not advertise on platforms whose primary purpose is the distribution of hate.
Well, and this is interesting, there's a little bit of a backlash to that backlash.
I hope GB News and Andrew Neal sue people like this guy for slander.
Platforms whose primary purpose is the distribution of hate is an outrageously dishonest slur, even if you don't share the political slander of GB News.
And he's right, isn't he?
I mean, seriously, saying that the primary purpose of this platform, you got 150 people, huge opera.
Your primary platform is not to tell the news.
It's not to make money.
It's to distribute hate.
That's your purpose.
Who says something so insane?
That actually is legally defamatory, isn't it?
Well, that woke CEO read that tweet from a critic.
And I don't know, maybe he was spooked by how crazy he looked to the world now that he read his own words.
Because he seemed to climb down a bit right away on Twitter.
He said, some people were saying we shouldn't advertise on platforms with spread hate.
We confirmed that we don't.
We separately said we want to see GBN output before deciding whether to advertise.
Some media reported out of context, and I think that's led to misinterpretation.
Yeah, I don't think it was out of context.
I think you know exactly what the story was about, and you said what you said.
I think you were taking liberties, and you realized how insane you sounded.
Well, Andrew Neal needs no defending, as you saw with Boris Johnson.
He can take on pretty much anyone he likes and come out on top.
So this is what he said.
He said, maybe you should boycott the media that's reporting you out of context instead of GB News.
Have a look at our content.
You'll find no hate.
Let me know if you want to advertise, and I'll let you know if we want your ads or whether we organize a boycott of you.
Isn't that amazing?
And that's the thing.
Why only play defense?
And seriously, you're going to accuse Andrew Neal and his diverse team of being hate mongers?
And by the way, who the hell are you?
Some green lobbyist?
So that green energy guy, I think he's chastened a bit.
He wrote back, he said, actually, Andrew, I'm watching your interview with Rishi right now.
Currently, the bit about gas boilers.
As per my message, we didn't boycott.
I wanted to see the channel and am true to my word.
Sounds more reasonable.
Sounds like a bit of damage control.
Here's Andrew Neal.
How many other channels have you watched before deciding to advertise?
I will be looking at brands to decide if they are fit to advertise with us.
I will have something to say about that and more on a special media watch tonight on GB News, 8 p.m.
Oh, seriously, do these brands, does IKEA, for example, examine the editorial policy of every news media and advertisement?
Of course not.
But maybe Andrew Neal has something to say about their Nazi past.
And his last word on Twitter, here's Andrew Neal.
He says, I resent even the thought that a channel of which I was chairman would peddle hate.
You should know better.
I'll let you know what Andrew Neal says on his show tonight.
I'll play a clip of you for tomorrow.
By the way, I think the money supermarket guys got scared.
Here's what they wrote later.
Just to confirm, guys, money supermarket is not boycotting its advertising on GB News.
Sorry for any confusion, Costa.
Sorry, guys.
And here's what actually a really socially conscious chain called Co-op UK wrote.
And I think they do the smartest job of all.
You tell me.
They said, in response to these hecklers, they said, we have developed a detailed and thoughtful advertising approach, which is driven by three principles.
One, we will not seek to affect the editorial independence of publications or channels.
That's a great way of putting it.
Two, we will not undermine the commercial value of our society for our members.
Society, I think that they're talking about the co-op.
So they have sort of members.
That's their way of saying shareholder value.
Three, we will ensure our values and principles are clear and undiminished, regardless of surrounding content.
So what does that mean?
Well, it means they're not going to try and muscle TV or radio or newspaper stations to change who they are.
Good for them.
Good for them.
They're not censors.
Number two, they're not going to make dumb business decisions in the name of being woke.
They're not going to stop advertising somewhere because someone heckles them.
And finally, they know who they are and they want their members to know who they are.
I thought that was refreshing and surprising.
I want to watch Andrew Neal's counterattack tonight.
Strong because of a lifetime of credibility and judgment and senior posts and many other media outlets as a publisher, editor, presenter.
He has high society friends too, rich and powerful friends, too.
He's not marginalized and he's smart, and he's not going to let his new project be killed by some canceled culture mob losers.
Hong Kong's Future Under Scrutiny00:14:51
Let's watch what he does.
And maybe, like so many things on GB News, maybe he could be a bit of a role model for us over here too.
Well, over the last year or so, Avi Yamini, our chief Australia correspondent, has been doing an amazing job covering the lockdown in his country, press freedom, and of course leading the Fight the Fines project down under.
But before the pandemic, Avi's main beat was Chinese democracy, namely Hong Kong's resistance of China's dictatorship.
Avi went over to Hong Kong several times on his own and with us to cover that peaceful democratic rebellion.
Here's a flashback to some of the highlights.
So I've just landed in Hong Kong Airport, where only a few days ago this airport was shut down due to mass protests.
Now it would seem that the protests have been quashed.
In fact, if you look on the wall here, there's new legislation that makes it illegal for people to protest here.
I've spoken to a few locals.
They say that the protests have been moved on into the city.
Tomorrow there is a mass protest in Hong Kong which is organized and they're expecting up to half a million people there.
This is just an ordinary night here in Hong Kong and one of many across the city where people are just spontaneously gathering.
So what we've got here is you've got hundreds of police in full riot gear looking like they're in formation getting ready to move on the crowds and this is crowds of you know people literally wearing protective gear.
A peaceful protest is what I would call this.
Everyone's been pretty nice to us.
I haven't seen any violence or intimidation or anything that would require police.
This is a state in crisis with no end in sight.
Do you see the police?
Do you believe that they're a bit over the top?
Do we should you?
Yeah.
Have you guys dealt with the bread?
It's unbelievable.
Yes, but actually it happened.
How do you see this ending?
How do you see it playing out?
No, trust the government.
We have no authority.
This is our duty to fight against something like something like Nazi.
If we don't fight here now, we are lost forever.
It's no more Hong Kong.
I have to admit, my favorite moment was when he asked this one Chinese fellow in Hong Kong what his message to Donald Trump was and should Trump trust China?
Remember this?
China is a evil party.
Hong Kong, no more to stand with China.
We need independence.
Yep.
And what's your message to, have you seen Donald Trump?
Do you think he should step in?
Donald Trump don't trust China.
China is asshole.
That's amazing.
Well, it's not safe for Avi to go back to Hong Kong anymore.
It's not even safe for Hong Kong people to speak up.
I should tell you that yesterday, Chinese police raided the headquarters of a major pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong called Apple Daily, arresting five executives, including their senior editor, charging them with all sorts of trumped up undermining of the state and colluding with foreign interests.
The typical Stalinist language used for arresting democracy activists.
It's the same language the Soviet Union used over the years.
Joining us now from Melbourne, Australia is our friend Javi Amini.
Abi, great to see you again.
Very bad news for Hong Kong.
And so far, not a lot of reaction from the West.
I think that is the shocking part because if you look at, you know, if you've been following Hong Kong closely, you would expect this escalation.
You would expect the clamping down of Apple Daily.
To be fair, I don't know how they survived so long.
Jimmy Lay, the founder of it, I think it was last month.
He was sentenced to 14 months in prison on Trumped up charges that I predict will somehow there'll be extra charges added at some point.
So I don't think it's a surprise that they've come in like that.
The shocking part is that the world before COVID was actually vocal and it was bipartisan.
It was both sides.
It seemed to agree on this one issue of China.
And everybody was outraged.
Everybody was talking about it.
And now it's far worse than it was.
Like you said in the intro there, even then, I was able to be there at the front line where now if I show up in Hong Kong, I'll definitely be shipped over to mainland China.
So it would be a risk probably not worth doing.
Probably better to advocate for Hong Kong outside of that.
But back then I could, and the world was talking about it.
Right now, it's unsafe for anyone, including Apple Daily, the brave journalists.
And I met a lot of them over there.
I had a good relationship with them.
They're great people, literally standing there in the firing line, just reporting what's happening.
And you can see what they're doing to them.
But again, it's the silence from the world right now that's truly shocking in this story.
But I can kind of understand why, besides for coronavirus taking the headlines over the last year, it's the fact that we've all become kind of used to that sort of police, CCP style policing, because that was something that we only saw in mainland China or in Hong Kong during the protests.
But in the last few days, we've seen that even in Australia.
We've seen that over the last year.
Heck, I've been arrested five times in similar fashion to how those police officers, to the Hong Kong police are treating the journalists there.
So even this week in Sydney, there's a, you know, he's a left-wing journalist.
But again, the overreach of the police state once again has taken down somebody who dare criticize him.
So I think that there is on both sides, again, this kind of people are used to it.
And it's not so shocking anymore.
Yeah, we're becoming more like China in terms of authoritarianism and cracking down on free speech.
We're becoming more like them.
They're not becoming more like us.
And the worst thing is, it's just, as you say, it's the new normal.
I don't know if Donald Trump was as vigorous with China as he could have been when it came to Hong Kong.
But I do know this, that the Chinese government did not do these moves when Trump was in power.
Did not dare mass arrest journalists, democracy activists.
I don't know if it just wasn't in their timing or if they thought we better not provoke Trump more.
I think that Joe Biden's disastrous trip to the G7 to NATO and his meeting with Putin where he forgot where he was, where he forgot what he was saying, where he forgot the name of Putin and called him Trump by accident.
I think the world immediately got the measure of Joe Biden and thought, okay, good.
There's a new sheriff in town and he's sleepy all the time.
Just in case you're kidding, you think I'm kidding.
Here's a clip of Joe Biden calling Vladimir Putin Donald Trump.
Take a look.
I caught part of President Trump, Putin's press conference.
Yeah, I don't think China is quite as worried about Donald Trump.
Sorry, about Joe Biden as they are Donald Trump.
I find it very sad.
You know, the day is young.
I haven't seen Justin Trudeau weigh in on it either.
I think that most of the world is just going to shrug.
Is there any ally for these folks at Apple Daily?
All the folks who railed against Donald Trump being the enemy of the media, are they going to speak out there?
Are there any allies?
Is there someone that with a straight face can say anything anymore?
That's the thing.
Like, which government can turn around and criticize China for arresting journalists in 2021?
Name one.
Yeah.
Well, it's funny because I was watching an interview the BBC had with, I think it was the president of Azerbaijan who asked him about repression of journalism, and he replied by asking about Julian Assange.
Here's a quick clip of that.
The internet is free, there is no censorship, and there are 80% of internet users.
We have millions of people on Facebook.
How can you say that we don't have free media?
This is, again, a biased approach.
This is an attempt to create a perception in Western audience about Azerbaijan.
We have opposition, we have NGOs, we have free political activity, we have free media, we have freedom of speech.
But if you raise this question, can I ask you also one?
How do you assess what happened to Mr. Assange?
Is it a reflection of free media in your country?
We're not here to discuss.
No country.
Let's discuss.
No, President.
In order to accuse me saying that Armenians will not have free media here, let's talk about Assange.
How many years, sorry, how many years he spent in Ecuadorian embassy?
And for what?
And where is he now?
For journalistic activity.
You kept that person hostage, actually killing him morally and physically.
You did it, not us, and now he's in prison.
So you have no moral right to talk about free media when you do these things.
Yeah, so if, you know, what are you going to say?
Is Justin Trudeau going to criticize this when he's putting through his censorship bill in parliament?
Joe Biden, I mean, I don't think he's arresting journalists yet, but I just think you're right.
We've lost our moral authority on free speech in the West and don't think our enemies won't throw back at us.
Last word to you, Avi.
Do you think that Hong Kong is going to continue to slide down this slippery slope?
We're on it now.
We're on this, it's a cliff.
It's not even a slope.
Do you think there will come a time soon when you see an exodus of anyone who wants to hold on to their political and journalistic liberties?
I mean, I'm sure the bankers will stay.
They'll find a way to stay and make money.
But do you think you'll see an exodus of the intellectual class of the democratic class from Hong Kong?
I think so now.
I remember when I was there, I was inspired by their grit and their willingness to fight.
But I also remember that there was this sense of an ally in Trump.
I don't think Hong Kong has maybe agreed with a lot of Trump's rhetoric, but when it came to his stance on China and the way he spoke to China on that specific issue, that it empowered him.
And there was this kind of sense when you walked around, you know, we're never giving up and the world is with us.
I think, you know, I'm just guessing from looking from a distance now, I think that that feeling must be gone on the street now.
It cannot be the same because they see that the world, I think that the world empowered him.
Trump empowered him.
And I just don't see, you know, I'm feeling depressed for them here watching nobody talk about it.
So I can just imagine how they are there.
So yeah, sadly, I do think there is going to be an exodus and I think people are going to, they're losing that fight that I, a year and a half ago, didn't think that they were going to lose just from the way they were so passionate and willing to stand and fight.
But I think that fight is, I can't see it going, going on because China is going to escalate and it's going to get worse and worse.
Yeah, if you use Mahatma Gandhi's passive resistance, that only works when you're up against the British Empire or a liberal-minded, rule-of-law-oriented occupier with a conscience.
It doesn't work against Xi Jinping or Stalin or Hitler.
If you say make love, not war, they'll kill you and throw your body on the pile.
It only works when you're up against noble opponents like the Brits.
What a shame.
I remember you interviewed one fellow who said he sort of longed for the days of being a British colony.
Remember this?
Here's a clip.
We want the British government to come back and rule us again.
We don't want the Chinese government to rule us anymore.
You want the British to come back?
Yes, of course.
The Chinese government is terrible.
What's your message to people who call the old British government a colonial power that used to abuse the entire world?
No, simply we just want the British government to come back and rule us again.
It's that simple?
Okay.
So you think the British did well?
The British government did very well.
Yeah, I bet a lot of folks do.
Well, I find the thing very sad and how things turn in 18 months to move from a democracy protest in Hong Kong from an inspiring democracy protest, a democracy protest that we could have all learned from.
And it's a shame.
Yeah, now they threw the Wuhan virus at us and we're reeling.
I'll be great to talk to you.
Keep up the freedom work in Australia.
Thanks, mate.
Thanks for having me.
All right.
There you have it.
Abiya Mini, chief political correspondent, chief everything correspondent for rebel news in Australia.
Stay with us more ahead.
Hey, welcome back on my show last night.
Kirk writes, the last CBC employees to criticize the Liberal government were Johnny Wayne and Frank Zuster.
Yeah, you know what?
Incredible Afraid: Parts of America?00:00:53
That gives me a childhood memory.
I remember those two.
Bruce writes, have you noticed that much of the oppression we in the formerly free world suffer these days mirrors what's happening in China?
They had lockdowns just like we did.
They wore masks, so we must wear them.
Dissidents end up in prison, just like our dissident pastors.
When Chinese cities see a spike in cases, they get locked down, just like the province of Alberta was.
It's amazing.
He wrote this email to us before we interviewed Avi Mini today, who told us the similarities between the Western world and his experience in China and Hong Kong.
It's just incredible.
I am afraid that we are not out of this authoritarian trap yet.
I think that parts of America are, but not all parts.
And I think very few parts of Canada are.
And I think that they all intend to come up with a new variant of concern in September.