'This Christmas, let’s pray to overcome darkness', Benedict Rogers

Christ is the light that shines in the darkness, even when the darkness does not comprehend it

On Christmas Eve, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ and welcome Emmanuel — ‘God with us’ — once again, let us remember all those throughout Asia and of course the world who are separated from their loved ones by repressive regimes.

Let us remember those who are refugees or internally displaced as a result of war or persecution. And let us remember those in prison for their political or religious beliefs.

Let us remember Asia’s dissidents who are in jail.

We think of Myanmar’s democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, about to begin her fifth year in prison.

Suu Kyi, who turns 80 next summer, should be nearing the end of her second term as de facto head of government, having won re-election with an overwhelming majority in 2020, but is instead in dire conditions in jail, where she has been since the military overthrew her legitimate government in an illegal coup on Feb. 1, 2021.

Serious concerns about her health remain and, given that she was sentenced to a total of 33 years — later reduced to 27 years — she will die in jail if the junta led by General Min Aung Hlaing does not concede to pressure to release her.

Three days ago, Suu Kyi’s son — Kim Aris — begged for her release, and on Dec. 22, he published this message on Facebook in Burmese for his mother.

Last week, The Independent released a powerful new documentary film about Suu Kyi, which deserves to be widely watched and shared.

Three former British foreign secretaries — William Hague, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, and Jack Straw — called for her release, and Britain’s former deputy foreign secretary and international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, whom I took to the Thailand-Myanmar border in 2007, and another former foreign minister Sir Alan Duncan joined the calls.

This Christmas, think of Suu Kyi who, although a devout Buddhist, once asked a Christian missionary and aid worker, the founder of Free Burma Rangers David Eubank, to pray for her country, telling him that her favorite verse in the Bible is the words from St John’s Gospel: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”

We think again of Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai, the extraordinary entrepreneur and democracy campaigner who founded the now defunct Apple Daily newspaper and is spending his fourth Christmas in solidarity confinement in jail, in deteriorating health. A devout Catholic, Lai has reportedly been denied the right to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist — Holy Communion — for the past year.

Lai, who just turned 77 and is a British national, has been in prison since his arrest in December 2020. That first year, after three weeks in custody, he was granted bail and was able to spend Christmas 2020 with his family at his home — but bail was revoked a week later and ever since New Year’s Eve 2020, he has been in prison.

His trial under the National Security Law continues, but he faces a minimum sentence of ten years and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Given his age, unless international pressure for his release, he too is likely to die in prison.

Like Suu Kyi’s son Kim Aris, Lai’s son Sebastien Lai is courageously leading the campaign for his release. As well as praying for Lai this Christmas, we should also remember his entire family and the heartbreaking tragedy that they endure. And if you are bored of the usual Christmas films on television, watch the amazing documentary about Lai, The Hong Konger, available for free online.

But as well as remembering high-profile political prisoners such as Suu Kyi and Lai, who are symbols for their people, we should remember the brave dissidents who may be less well known but whose suffering is no less intense.

People such as Zhang Zhan, the courageous Chinese citizen journalist and lawyer who spent four years in prison for her coverage of the Covid 19 pandemic, and then was re-arrested and jailed soon after her release.

People like Chow Hang-tung, the extraordinary Hong Kong barrister and activist jailed for organizing a commemoration of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Remember too the 45 Hong Kong former legislators and activists jailed simply for organizing a process to choose the pro-democracy camp’s candidates for what would have been the 2020 Legislative Council elections.

Those elections were subsequently postponed, the rules were changed and anyone who could not prove total loyalty to Xi Jinping’s regime in Beijing was disqualified and, in many cases, jailed.

Remember Joshua Wong, the former teenage student protest leader, and remember the more than 1,000 political prisoners in Hong Kong who may not be known to us but whose names are known to God.

And remember Myanmar’s 21, 399 political prisoners — recorded by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, whose painstaking work is vitally important. Pray too for their families and loved ones.

Remember the Uyghur prisoner of conscience Ilham Tohti, sentenced to life imprisonment a decade ago for his peaceful and moderate advocacy of Uyghur rights. As Amnesty International rightly says, China must end “a decade of injustice”.

And Gulshan Abbas, a retired Uyghur doctor who was arrested when her courageous sister, Rushan Abbas, began highlighting her people’s plight on the international stage. Earlier this year, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for her release and that of Ilham Tohti. Let us pray for their freedom this Christmas.

Just as we pray for the thousands of political prisoners in Myanmar and Hong Kong whose names we may not know, we must also remember the thousands of prisoners in the gulags of China’s Xinjiang region and in the prison camps of North Korea, and the refugees and internally displaced peoples across Myanmar.

And let us remember those persecuted elsewhere in the region, such as the Christian pastor shot this month with rubber bullets in Vietnam, Y Hung Ayun.

And the brave people of Tibet, who have suffered so much for the past 75 years. Let us remember the many Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns in jail, and the over one million Tibetan children cut off from their parents, religion, culture, language, and identity in Chinese Communist Party-controlled colonial boarding schools.

Especially this Christmas, let us pray for our brothers and sisters who celebrate the Incarnation not in the warmth of a loving home, but without food, shelter, health care, or education, and at risk of bullets,  bombs, and beatings without warning.

Our Lord, whose birth in a stable in Bethlehem we celebrate tonight, came into the world, we are told, as the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counsellor, and Mighty God.

Yet, he did so not as a conquering tyrant but as a refugee, a dissident, born in a stable and executed on a cross.

He is the light that shines in the darkness, even when the darkness does not comprehend it.

So tonight, let us pray that His light comes into every prison cell, every refugee camp and every gulag across this continent and the world — and overcomes the darkness.

This article was published in UCA News on 24 December 2024.