Benedict Rogers: British parliamentarian call for sanctions against Carrie Lam – just the start

This week a group of British Parliamentarians published a report calling for Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam and others in the Hong Kong government and police to face sanctions for serious violations of international humanitarian law.

The report was the result of a four-month inquiry by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Hong Kong, a cross-party group in Westminster established last year to focus on the territory’s human rights situation.

The inquiry heard many hours of testimony and received over 1,000 submissions, and after sifting the evidence concluded that it was “indisputable” that the Hong Kong Police Force had breached the Sino-British Joint Declaration and international human rights and humanitarian laws.

It is amazing how the twists and turns of life and the contours of the fight for freedom can often be the result of chance – or serendipity – that turn apposite or become prescient.

Last November, I happened to read an article in the Lancet by Dr Darren Mann , a British surgeon who has lived in Hong Kong for 25 years and who, together with other medics, provided emergency medical care during the protests.

I confess I am not a Lancet-reader. But Dr Mann’s article was such a shocking account of appalling abuses against medics that I could not fail to respond.

I assumed Dr Mann was inundated with emails and so I hesitated about whether to bother him. But I erred on the side of annoyance rather than silence. He replied swiftly, we became friends and worked together with policy-makers. It turned out I was one of very few to react to his piece – but together we turned his column into a campaign.

A month later, he was in Parliament at an event hosted by Lord Alton of Liverpool , a Patron of Hong Kong Watch, and early in the new year he was invited to address the APPG.

That sparked the inquiry and the resulting report.

In a way, the report launched this week is a snapshot of how Hong Kong advocacy over the past three years has escalated, and an illustration of how Hong Kong has grown as a concern in the British Parliament. Of course that reflects the gravity of the crisis in Hong Kong, but is also the result of a growing group of advocates working together to ensure that it is further up the agenda.

Having lived in Hong Kong for the first five years after the handover, from 1997-2002, when the Umbrella Movement took place six years ago, I knew in my heart I had no choice but to offer my voice. I recognized it as a turning point.

At the time, few others did. I was often a lone voice. I wrote op-eds and talked to MPs(members of parliament) but those who showed interest were few.

In 2016 I met a young, newly elected legislator called Nathan Law in London. The father of Hong Kong’s democracy movement, Martin Lee, asked me if I would help Nathan, and I gladly agreed. I took Nathan – the youngest ever legislator in Hong Kong – to meet David Alton, who had once been the youngest Member of Parliament.

It was “Red Wednesday”, the day when we remember those around the world who are persecuted for their religious faith, and we rode on a red double-decker bus around London as various city sites were lit up in red in commemoration of the persecuted. It was a master-class in campaigning. Afterwards, we had dinner in the House of Lords – where Lord Alton told Nathan that “us babies of the House must stick together”.

Little did we know then how dramatically life would change – for us all.

In 2017 Nathan was disqualified from the Legislative Council – for quoting Mahatma Gandhi in his oath – and his colleagues Joshua Wong and Alex Chow, also friends of mine, faced arrest.

Then in August that year they were arrested, and I knew we had to up our game.

It was no longer sustainable to rely on one guy in his spare time, in an ad hoc way, speaking up for Hong Kong in Westminster. I had a full-time job with another human rights organisation, focused on Burma/Myanmar, Indonesia, North Korea, China – and I knew the city I began my working life in and love deeply needed more attention.

In August 2017 I sat in a traffic jam in Surabaya, Indonesia. If you know Indonesian traffic-jams, you know they give you plenty of thinking time. Joshua, Nathan and Alex’s trial was underway and I reflected on what more could be done to give Hong Kong the help it needed. I texted a few people from that Surabaya taxi with an idea: to establish an advocacy organisation for Hong Kong. That’s how Hong Kong Watch was conceived.

Joshua, Nathan and Alex were jailed a few days later, while I was on holiday in Bali. I saw the sentencing and thought: “well someone should do something”. Then it dawned on me that perhaps that somebody might be me. So I organized a statement by international dignitaries – and didn’t look back. My holidays have been disrupted by Hong Kong’s struggle for freedom ever since.

In October 2017 I tried to visit Hong Kong but was denied entry . When I returned to London, the former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown called me and asked to meet, which we did within a few days.

“Since you can’t get into Hong Kong, why don’t I try to go instead?,” Paddy suggested, and a few weeks later he was on a plane. He was not blocked from entry, but the Chinese embassy in London complained about his visit and Carrie Lam condemned his subsequent report .

We launched Hong Kong Watch on 10 December2017, International Human Rights Day, in Speaker’s House in Parliament, hosted by Speaker John Bercow. I almost missed the launch – I had been in Stockholm for a meeting about Burma and was due to return home the previous night, but my flight was cancelled due to snow. I made it back on the morning of the launch, just in time to rush home to change into my suit and tie, and arrived in Parliament with five minutes to spare before taking the podium. An activist’s life can be precarious.

Until last year, I thought I could advocate for Hong Kong in my spare time. We had built a remarkable team, led by Hong Kong Watch’s brilliant Director, my friend and colleague Johnny Patterson, in whom I have the utmost confidence and with whom it is a privilege to work. While the erosion of Hong Kong’s freedoms became increasingly serious, I did not anticipate it would consume all my thoughts and energy. I was content simply to support when I could.

Over the past twelve months, however, the city that was once my home turned into the frontline in the fight for freedom. And I became engulfed in that fight. Day after day, night after night, tweet after tweet, op-ed after op-ed Hong Kong was in my blood. I understood that if we don’t fight for Hong Kong, our own freedoms are at stake. If the Chinese Communist Party regime is allowed to get away with what it has done to Hong Kong, Taiwan will be next and then the rest of the free world. If there is a key to unlocking the repression of North Korea and Burma, it’s China. And if there’s a key to shining a light on China’s repression, it’s Hong Kong. The struggle for freedom for Hong Kong and the world are inextricably linked.

For that reason, I decided this could no longer be a spare-time fight. Hong Kong deserves my all. As it becomes more dangerous for Hong Kongers in the city to speak to the world, people like me must step up. So last week as Legislative Council elections were postponed, pro-democracy candidates disqualified, arrest warrants for several of my friends issued and people I used to talk to almost daily said they were unsure when they could next talk to me, Hong Kong Watch announced my appointment as its Chief Executive. But I much prefer the title “handfoot” (comrade), a phrase from the movement I learned recently.

Even though Hong Kong faces its darkest days, the free world is awakening to the severity of the challenge and the importance of the task.

Three years ago it was a struggle to make Parliamentarians understand that freedom in Hong Kong was threatened.

Today – thanks to the efforts of a wider band of advocates and campaigners, in the Hong Kong Watch team and my friends in Stand with Hong Kong and among a growing number of allies in Parliament – they’re calling for sanctions against those destroying that freedom.

That is welcome. And it shows what can be achieved by teamwork and determination. An individual can do their part – but a group of individuals working as a team can have a bigger impact. As Mary Mead once said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

But the call for sanctions is just the start. We must increase the pressure. Rest assured, in my new full-time role, I will.

As Alistair Carmichael MP, a Patron of Hong Kong Watch and Co-Chair of the APPG, said at the report launch, this is a fight we can win. I will be with Hong Kong in this fight for as long as it takes, proud to be a small “handfoot”, along with my friends.

Benedict Rogers is the Co-founder and Chair of Hong Kong Watch. The article was published in Apple Daily on 7 August 2020. (Photo: Apple Daily)