Apple Daily: 'Hongkongers: many of us are holding a light for you, and one day the light will overcome the darkness', Benedict Rogers

A week ago today I woke up in London to calls from the BBC, asking me if I could go on air within minutes to respond to the imminent sentencing of nine of Hong Kong’s most experienced and senior, most moderate and mainstream, most peaceful and internationally respected pro-democracy campaigners for the crime of peaceful protest. It was yet another dark day among many for Hong Kong in recent years, but it felt like an especially heavy nail in the coffin of Hong Kong’s freedoms.

For Jimmy Lai, proprietor of this brilliant publication, it was one of many cases he faces – the 12-month sentence he received a week ago is most likely just the start of a much longer time behind bars. The man I know, love and admire along with the rest of the world is paying a very high price for his commitment to his values – and he deserves our wholehearted support and prayers during his forthcoming ordeal.

For the others, serving between eight and 18 months in jail is also heartbreaking. Even for those who received suspended sentences – the father of Hong Kong’s democracy movement Martin Lee, barrister Margaret Ng, solicitor Albert Ho, and Leung Yiu-Chung, all former legislators – while leniency may have been given, justice has definitely not been done. To even be convicted is a grave injustice. These are people I have admired – and in some cases known personally – ever since I lived in Hong Kong more than 20 years ago. They are people who should be honored, lauded and respected, not prosecuted.

That day, a week ago, alongside a round of media interviews, our team in Hong Kong Watch and our friends in other organizations immediately sprang into action. We released a statement from the last governor of Hong Kong Lord Patten of Barnes, together with the Labour Party’s Shadow Minister for Asia Stephen Kinnock MP, US Senator Mitt Romney, US Congressman Ami Bera, US Congressman Tim Burchett, Canadian Senators Leo Housakos and Jim Munson and Canadian MP Jenny Kwan, condemning the sentences and calling for the immediate release of those jailed. And we launched our new campaign to free political prisoners.

As Lord Patten said: “The CCP’s comprehensive assault on the freedoms of Hong Kong and its rule of law continues relentlessly. We have witnessed some of the most distinguished of the city’s peaceful and moderate champions of liberty and democracy placed in Beijing’s vengeful sights. The CCP simply does not understand that you cannot bludgeon and incarcerate people into loving a totalitarian and corrupt regime. While Hong Kong’s values are attacked by the CCP, the regime is also careful in its attempt to safeguard the use of the city as a secret means for the family and friends of Beijing’s leaders to store away the proceeds of their corruption. All those who are conniving at destroying the Hong Kong loved by the world will be remembered in shame, even as, in due course, they scurry off from Hong Kong clutching their foreign passports.”

The Hong Kong government reacted with typical unhinged fury, condemning these distinguished international politicians for making “baseless attacks”.

More international reaction followed. Due to our efforts and those of others, an urgent debate in the House of Lords was secured for Monday this week, tabled by the inestimable Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws, one of Britain’s leading barristers. Lord Alton of Liverpool made a powerful intervention, declaring that “as a patron of Hong Kong Watch and an officer of the All-Party Group on Hong Kong, I personally know Martin Lee, the father of Hong Kong democracy, Margaret Ng, a formidable lawyer, and Jimmy Lai, a champion of free speech and a full holder of a UK passport. Does the Minister agree they deserve better than a medieval star chamber and a Stalinist show trial? Is the debasement of law by puppets and quislings not best met by calling out the Chinese Communist Party at the next meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council, focusing on … the CCP’s lawbreaking and treaty-breaking, and its sentencing, imprisonment and detention in psychiatric institutions of women and men whose values we share?”

So to Hong Kongers who may be asking themselves, after yet another dark week, what the rest of the world thinks, the answer should be very clear. You have many friends in the free world, doing everything we can to speak out for you. And, if you need to leave Hong Kong, the message from Britain is that you are very welcome here.

Cabinet minister Robert Jenrick MP, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, wrote on Monday with regard to Hong Kongers taking up the British National Overseas (BNO) scheme that: “Our message is clear – that the UK government and the British people are here to welcome you with open arms, and we will endeavor to help you as much as possible to settle in and build a prosperous, happy life in your new home. You have so much to offer our nation at this critical point in our island’s history. Our children will thrive studying alongside one another, our businesses will benefit from new talent, and our communities will be enriched by new neighbors and friendships. While uprooting your family and beginning a new life on the other side of the world is a daunting prospect, I have no doubt that you are going to feel very much at home. We are doing everything in our power to ensure your success and happiness here, with support to help you find a home, schools for your children, jobs and opportunity.” The British government has announced a £43 million package of support to help you settle in the UK, and civil society is uniting to be on hand in various ways to welcome you.

As Hong Kong’s freedoms continue to be dismantled – with growing concerns now about media freedom highlighted in Reporters Without Borders’ 2021 world press freedom index released this week, increasing threats to this very publication, and worries over religious freedom in light of both the Chinese Communist Party’s all-out assault on religion in the mainland and the Vatican’s shameful capitulation – we have to still hold on to three hopes: Hong Kong still has many friends in the rest of the world, ready to speak for you where we can and welcome you where we need to; Hong Kong is not dead, because its “Lion Rock spirit” lives on in the hearts of Hong Kongers and those who love you, even if its freedoms are – at least for now; and that no dictatorship lasts forever, as after the night comes the dawn.

One further straw of hope to grasp is the news that almost 130 civil servants failed to take the oath of allegiance. This is significant, for this oath is not a pledge of loyalty to the people of Hong Kong or the sovereignty of China, but to the Chinese Communist Party regime. However, one question Hong Kongers are increasingly asking me is this: why only 130?

Hong Kongers who saw Myanmar’s courageous ambassador to the United Nations Kyaw Moe Tun declare on the floor of the UN General Assembly his opposition to the military coup in his country and his support for the democratically elected leaders, raising the three-finger salute as he did so, ask me: why do no Hong Kong officials in the city and around the world do the same? That’s a question you might want to put directly to them.

What has happened to Hong Kong over the past year is nothing short of a tragedy. It was summed up well in a homily by a priest in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Hong Kong on Divine Mercy Sunday, who said: “We have been unexpectedly wounded ... in our belief about the future of Hong Kong, by experiencing a sharp reduction in our freedom of speech and our civil rights as an immediate consequence of the imposition of the National Security Law by Beijing”.

But he added: “Brothers and sisters, we do not have to hide our wounds, we do not have to be ashamed of them, they are the proof of our love for a healthy, a prosperous and a free Hong Kong.”

That’s a love I share with you as I share some part in your wounds and as, together with my friends and colleagues, we try to offer you some support, solidarity and hope in your struggle in these increasingly dark times. Don’t forget – many of us are holding a light for you, and one day the light will overcome the darkness.

Benedict Rogers is co-founder and Chief Executive of Hong Kong Watch. This article was published in Apple Daily on 23 April 2021.