Dear Editor,
EVER so often, a familiar drama plays out in the public arena: A fugitive offender, finally tracked down after months or years of evasion, suddenly declares themselves a victim of “political persecution”. It is a predictable script—and a deeply cynical one.
The hypocrisy is hard to overlook. For as long as the law is optional, these individuals ignore subpoenas, skip court dates, and cross borders to avoid accountability.
Yet, the moment law enforcement catches up, they rush to embrace the very legal system they previously dismissed, insisting on the protections of due process while casting doubt on its legitimacy.
If they trusted the system enough to cry foul now, why did they not trust it enough to stand before it earlier? Claiming political persecution is not a legal argument—it is a public relations strategy.
It reframes a concrete criminal case into a sweeping ideological drama, hoping to drown out the uncomfortable specifics: the evidence, the witnesses, the paper trail. Even more telling is the timing. Rarely do these complaints arise at the start of an investigation. They appear only after arrest, when theatrics replace defence.
This tactic does real harm. It cheapens the language of political oppression; language that belongs to journalists, dissidents, and activists who genuinely risk their lives for their beliefs.
When fugitives co-opt that vocabulary to avoid answering for fraud, corruption, or other misconduct, they trivialise the struggles of people who have no choice but to confront authoritarian abuse.
A democratic society should remain vigilant against true political prosecutions. But we should be equally vigilant against attempts to weaponise that fear. Accountability is not persecution. A warrant is not a witch hunt. And those who run from the law should not be applauded when they reappear as self-styled martyrs.
When the facts are clear and the process is fair, we shouldn’t let anyone—no matter how loudly they shout—blur the difference between justice and victimhood.