Benedict Rogers: My fast and hunger strike on Christmas eve

Christmas is a celebration of birth, life, love, hope and liberation. It is a time for giving and a time for sharing. It is a time when the material and the mystical meet and, if celebrated well, a time when the meaningful prevails. The gifts, the food, the drink, the games are all enjoyable in themselves, but if they are to be really appreciated it is as signposts towards the more intangible – that message of solidarity that comes from the story of God being born as man. And not just any man, but coming with all the vulnerability of a little baby, in a world filled then, as now, with injustice. There was no room in the inn for the baby, and the king – Herod – was out to kill him. In truth, Jesus Christ was the world’s most high-profile refugee, most significant dissident who suffered history’s most unjust execution.

Darkness, death and mourning are never far away from the light, life and joy of Christmas. It is no coincidence that in the Christian calendar, the day after Christmas is St Stephen’s Day, when we remember the first martyr, who was stoned to death by those who disliked his message. Two days after that, the Church commemorates the massacre of the innocents, when Herod ordered the slaughter of all male children under the age of two.

For many around the world, that proximity of death, pain and loss is especially acute this year. Many have lost loved ones to the Covid-19 pandemic, or lost their livelihood. Many are separated from their families due to social distancing rules. For me, this is the first Christmas since my father died, my first Christmas since my mother sold the family home of 39 years, and the first Christmas in many years when I cannot be with my mother because of the virus.

And for people in Hong Kong, the darkness that is just around the corner from the Christmas lights is even more poignant. Kids in jail unable to be with their families for Christmas, parents whose children have gone into exile on the other side of the world, or whole families preparing to pack up and leave the only place they have, until now, called home.

That is why I decided to do something a little unusual yesterday for Christmas Eve. I decided to fast and go on hunger strike, and issue a Christmas Open Letter to Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and another addressed to “everyone throughout China, Hong Kong, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) better known as East Turkestan, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and beyond – to every prisoner, to every activist, to every religious believer, to every blogger, to every journalist, to every lawyer, to every person who yearns to be free.”

These acts are symbolic. But so much of Christmas is filled with symbolism. And so I felt that making a relatively tiny sacrifice of fasting alone for 24 hours on a day when normally I would be getting ready for celebrations with family would serve two purposes. I call it a fast and a hunger strike, deliberately using both terms, because a fast is a spiritual act accompanied by prayer, and a hunger strike is a political act attached to protest. And I wanted my small action to be both.

At Christmas we usually send cards to friends and acquaintances, and many people have a custom of writing a Christmas letter with all their news from the year. Children write letters to Santa Claus with their wishes. And there is a tradition – encapsulated in a Christmas carol – of the 12 Days of Christmas. So I thought that a Christmas letter to Xi Jinping, and another to the peoples living under his rule, with 12 Demands for Christmas, would be appropriate – to let Xi know that the regime’s actions are not ignored and to let the people know that their suffering is not forgotten.

My original plan was in fact to hold 12 hours of protest outside the Chinese Embassy in London. I had even arranged a cage to sit in, and a rota of volunteers to take it in turns to ensure a constant presence for 12 hours. Unfortunately, Covid restrictions tightened and I had to change plans, but the heart of the action remained the same.

Why would I do this at Christmas? Because I could not in good conscience enjoy Christmas celebrations without remembering my Hong Kong, Tibetan, Uyghur, Christian, Falun Gong and Chinese dissident brothers and sisters. If Christmas is about giving and sharing, then the best gift I could give would be to be with people suffering in prison or persecution in spirit and solidarity – to give some of my time, prayers, thoughts, attention and voice to them, and to share – at least in spirit – their pain. My action was an attempt to offer a small Christmas gift – and I hope that those sitting in prison cells or concentration camps, or in hiding or exile, may know in their spirits that their names are being spoken and people are calling for their release. Free Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow, Ivan Lam, Andy Li, free the 12 Hong Kong youths, free Gui Minhai, Li Ming-che, free Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, free Pastor Wang Yi – and so many others whose names we do not know or cannot record here. And while Jimmy Lai’s release on bail two days ago is welcome because it means he can be together with his family, he too is not free – the conditions of his bail are extraordinarily restrictive, and so I still say free Jimmy Lai today.

And in addition to all the individual prisoners of conscience, there are the big picture tragedies that keep my soul and conscience awake at night too: the genocide of the Uyghurs, the atrocities in Tibet, the persecution of Christians, Falun Gong practitioners and other religions, the repression of civil society, lawyers, bloggers, journalists, whistleblowers and dissidents, the broken promises and dismantling of freedom in Hong Kong, the barbaric forced organ harvesting, torture and slave labor. Modern-day martyrdom, contemporary massacres of the innocents. These crimes must stop, and the world must wake up, stand up and speak out.

Two years ago, just three days before Christmas, one of Hong Kong Watch’s patrons and one of my heroes, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats in Britain, Paddy Ashdown, died. We miss him enormously, for he was a robust, energetic, wise and devoted friend of Hong Kong and defender of its liberties.

My abiding memory of Paddy was when I returned to London in October 2017 having been denied entry to Hong Kong on the orders of Beijing. Within hours of my landing, Paddy emailed me, having heard the news. “What has happened to you is incredibly serious. It’s a flagrant violation of Hong Kong’s autonomy. Please come and see me urgently,” he wrote. So we met a few days later in the House of Lords and he got straight to the point: “Since they won’t let you into Hong Kong, why don’t I try to go instead?,” he proposed.

Within a day or two we had an invitation for him to speak at the Foreign Correspondents Club, a generous donor willing to fund the costs and a programme of meetings, and a few weeks later he undertook a two-day visit to Hong Kong.

That willingness to act immediately, to send a signal, to stand in solidarity inspired me enormously. And as now today I know that what is happening to Hong Kong – and to people across China – is infinitely far, far more serious than anything that has ever happened to me, although I can’t go in person the way Paddy did – not only because I am banned and because there are no flights due to Covid – I can be with you in spirit. And what better way of spending Christmas Eve could there possibly be? After all, we celebrate the birth of Emmanuel – “God with us” – and so in our own tiny, frail, fallible human ways, we could follow His example to be with others, at least in spirit.

For the first time in my life I am unable to go to church on Christmas Eve. Covid restrictions mean that although places of worship are allowed to open, social distancing measures require advance booking to attend Mass. My parish church was already booked up a few days ago. But there’s a blessing in that – I will go to Mass in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Hong Kong, instead. Virtually, of course, but in spirit. And that’s beautiful because it is where my heart is right now: with the people of Hong Kong and all the peoples of China, sharing – and I hope spreading – the message of Christmas, a message that is far more potent, life-changing and long-lasting than any virus.

As I said in my Open Letters released yesterday, Christmas can never be “cancelled”: not by pandemics, nor by brutal, mendacious dictatorships. Our movements, activities and interactions may be curtailed, but the spirit of Christmas can never be restricted, imprisoned or killed. So I wish you a very merry Christmas.

Benedict Rogers is Co-Founder and Chief Executive of Hong Kong Watch. This article was published in Apple Daily on 25 December 2020.