Night raid among democracy activists in Hong Kong. Five Democratic administrators of a fund for the defense of pro-democracy protesters in 2019, now dissolved, including Cardinal Joseph Zen, were arrested on the evening of May 11, in Hong Kong.
We first learned of the arrest of Hui Po-keung, a Hong Kong academic who participated in the management of this fund. He was arrested at Hong Kong airport under national security law as he was about to travel to Europe for a university post.
Arrested in his Salesian community
Later in the evening, several sources indicated that four other administrators of the « 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund » , who helped arrested protesters pay their legal and medical bills, had also been arrested. Among them was retired Cardinal Joseph Zen, one of the leading figures of the Catholic Church in Asia – “taken away by the police who came to look for him in his Salesian community” –, the famous lawyer Margaret Ng and the very popular pop singer and LGBT activist Denise Ho who had celebrated her 45th birthday the day before. Pro-democracy activist Cyd Ho was also part of the relief fund but is already behind bars on other charges.
They seem to have been arrested for “collusion with foreign forces” , according to a source, which is punishable by the national security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong in July 2020 in response to the huge protests of the previous year. This law has crushed all dissent in this Asian business center where expression was once free.
« The Holy See has learned with concern the news of the arrest of Cardinal Zen and is following the development of the situation very closely », the Vatican said. At the end of the afternoon in Europe, however, we learned that four of the five activists had been released on bail, the fifth remaining in prison.
Cardinal Joseph Zen, Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong (diocese he led from 2002 to 2009), a figure in the fight for democracy and religious freedoms in China, reacted to The cross the day after the imposition of the national security law: “I fear that we will lose our autonomy, which was promised by the Beijing regime years ago in the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984. Beijing is the root of all of Hong Kong’s current problems. Hong Kong is expecting the worst now, and I don’t see what we can do unless there is a strong international reaction. »
Hostility to the agreement signed between the Vatican and Beijing
The bishop emeritus is also known for his marked hostility towards the agreement signed between the Vatican and Beijing on the appointment of Chinese bishops in September 2018, after almost 70 years of absence of diplomatic relations.
Cardinal Joseph Zen believed that the agreement could lead, purely and simply, to “the annihilation of the true Church” Chinese. He was also critical of Pope Francis. « For me, the pope does not know the situation of the Church in China and the nature of the Chinese regime »he pointed out, bluntly.
A two-year extended agreement
In 2020, China and the Vatican agreed to extend the historic agreement reached in 2018 by two years, despite a context of hardening Chinese power. A text that is not unanimous. Without going as far as Cardinal Zen, some deplore the deterioration, according to them, of the living conditions of certain Chinese Catholics.
“The fact that this agreement remains secret is a real problem, because the Chinese authorities can take advantage of a Vatican bond to carry out these actions”worried Father Bernardo Cervellera, a priest at the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions who, in Rome, runs the information portal AsiaNews.
The arrests, including that of Cardinal Zen, come the day after Beijing named John Lee, 64, as the next chief executive to succeed Carrie Lam in July and whose mission is to “finish the security work”.
Despite hundreds of arrests of activists, lawyers, MPs, journalists and students since 2019, the spirit of resistance is far from gone in Hong Kong as local police departments continue to methodically track down those responsible for the protests. .
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A figure of the opposition to the Chinese regime
Cardinal Joseph Zen was born on January 13, 1932 in Shanghai (China). He joined Hong Kong with his family at 12 before the communists came to power. He was ordained a priest on February 11, 1961 for the Society of Don Bosco (Salesians) in Italy. He returned to Hong Kong in the early 1970s.
Salesian Provincial Superior for China for six years (1978-1984), he was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Hong Kong in 1996 and Bishop of the Diocese in 2002 (a position from which he retired in 2009). Benedict XVI created him cardinal in 2006. Cardinal Zen is known for his many positions in defense of democracy and individual freedoms.
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