Benedict Rogers: Powerful Hong Kong police, Vatican and Chinese regime are cowardly

Three images are in my mind right now – three images that sum up the repression that Hong Kong is under, but also the fear that those in power possess.

First, the image of a young high school student quietly reading the newspaper – this excellent newspaper – in Prince Edward MTR station, surrounded by police officers who cordoned off the area claiming that him reading the Apple Daily would “affect other passengers”. If the police are afraid of a young student sitting down reading a newspaper, they are even more insecure than I thought.

Second, the image of an octogenarian Cardinal standing in St Peter’s Square, Rome, after trying – and failing – to secure a meeting with Pope Francis. Cardinal Joseph Zen, Hong Kong’s emeritus bishop and one of my heroes, travelled to Rome specifically to meet the Pope, in a last-ditch attempt to warn the Vatican of the dangers of appointing the wrong candidate as Hong Kong’s new bishop. The least the Pope could have done is found half an hour to hear Cardinal Zen out – but this current Vatican is so filled with fear of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s reaction that it has sold out.

Third, the image of the tiny, fragile speedboat – and its 12 passengers – which just over a month ago set off from Sai Kung to Taiwan but was apprehended by the Chinese police. While there is no literal image of the 12, no first-hand information about the conditions in which they are jailed in Shenzhen, no verified reports of how they are being treated, the image of these 12 young Hong Kongers haunts me. Again it symbolizes fear and repression – the fear these 12 youths must have been in to warrant such a risky attempt at escape, the fear they and their families feel now, and the CCP’s repression which in itself is based on fear.

In all three images we see a stark contrast: peaceful, ill-equipped, vulnerable and good people, posing – at least on the surface – no threat to anyone, armed only with the truth, versus a powerful, wealthy and well-resourced authority. Yet it is the seemingly powerless who, in all three examples, possess a heroic and extraordinary courage, and the powerful who are cowardly.

For the young student with the newspaper, it seems he deliberately did what he did as a quiet, creative, subtle act of protest, knowing that reading a newspaper is not illegal – but knowing that these days, even this simple act that most of us would regard as normal is an act of defiance.

For the elderly Cardinal, travelling to Rome to try to meet the Pope was on the one hand hardly an unusual act someone in his position and yet these days in this context it was a brave one.

For the 12 youths, of course theirs was the most obviously courageous, risking their very lives in some of the most heavily patrolled and most dangerous waters in the world.

In contrast, it is the powerful Hong Kong police – fully equipped and able to enforce their reign of terror – who seemed unnerved by the newspaper-reading student.

It is the Vatican – with all its resources, authority and influence – that seemed scared of a dissenting Cardinal.

And it is the regime in China, with all its tools of repression, that is afraid of any critic.

Those of us who live in freedom now have an urgent responsibility to use our cherished liberties to stand on the side of the seemingly powerless but very obviously courageous.

We should stand with this newspaper, and the right of everyone to read it if they wish, and defend media freedom.

We should stand with Cardinal Zen, and demand that the Vatican reveal the full details of the agreement it signed with the CCP, and then review it together. We should support his call on Rome to think carefully about who it appoints as the new bishop in Hong Kong – and to kowtow to Beijing no more.

And we should do everything possible to ensure that the 12 young Hong Kongers now in jail in China are never forgotten, that they are not mistreated, that they receive due process and that they are returned to Hong Kong soon.

This week I began my new full-time role as Chief Executive of Hong Kong Watch. Those three images will always stay in my mind as I do this job – and I’ll always be on the side of the student reading a newspaper, the Cardinal exercising his conscience and the 12 languishing in jail.

I happened to have a copy of the Apple Daily, and so I went and sat on a station platform in London to read it, in solidarity with that student. Maybe that’s an idea – something all of us could do? After all, peacefully reading a newspaper is not a crime, it’s everyone’s right.

Benedict Rogers is the Co-founder and Chief Executive of Hong Kong Watch. The article was published in Apple Daily on 2 October 2020.