Benedict Rogers: Those who stand for truth are never alone

On New Year’s Eve a year ago, 44 Parliamentarians and public figures from 18 countries published an Open Letter to Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam, expressing their “grave concerns at the recent escalation of police brutality over the Christmas period” and appealing to her to instruct the Hong Kong Police to exercise restraint.

The signatories included the former Speaker of the UK House of Commons John Bercow, the President of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences Cardinal Charles Bo of Myanmar, Alissa Wahid, daughter of Indonesia’s former president Abdurrahman Wahid, the former British Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind and the former Polish Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga, the Chair of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights Charles Santiago and British, German, Canadian, Australian, Irish, Lithuanian, Slovakian and Myanmar legislators. You could not ask for a more global, diverse and distinguished group of voices. They called for dialogue with the protesters, an independent inquiry into police brutality and democratic reform, and offered their own services for “mediation and reconciliation”. They warned of the “tragedy” facing Hong Kong if the city “gains a reputation for repression”.

I spent my New Year’s Eve a year ago disseminating their Open Letter and was struck by the speed and arrogance with which the Hong Kong government rebuffed it. Within a few hours of its release, in the middle of the night in Hong Kong, the government issued a statement refuting the “unfounded and misguided claims” made by “a group of overseas politicians and persons.” It followed the regime’s similarly rapid rebuff to a statement Hong Kong Watch issued a week before on Christmas Eve 2019, after I had spent much of my Christmas watching the Hong Kong Police beat and teargas shoppers and demonstrators when I should have been celebrating with my family – and, more importantly, when they should have been allowed to shop, and protest, freely.

The disrespectful and haughty tone was yet another indication that the Hong Kong government is no longer in the hands of a trained, experienced and professional civil service skilled in international relations, but instead has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime. Their rejection, in the early hours of New Year’s Day, of a genuine appeal that came not from “overseas politicians and persons” but from some of the most distinguished Parliamentarians, religious figures, civil society leaders and diplomats from across the world – including many throughout Asia – was a precursor to the all-out assault on Hong Kong’s remaining freedoms which the CCP – with Mrs Lam’s full involvement and enthusiastic support – has unleashed on the city throughout 2020.

As we begin another New Year, that tragedy of which the 44 dignitaries warned – that Hong Kong would gain “a reputation for repression” – has become a reality. The streets may be calm in the city, but there is no peace. It is a false, fragile peace, achieved by a draconian law that silences protest and locks up dissenters. It is a deceptive peace, based not on justice, reform and reconciliation that could have led to a meaningful peace, but instead on the eerie quietness that stems from fear. It is not a peace that is in the hearts of Hong Kongers, but rather a ‘peace’ matched with the stench of death, one that prevails over a prison when the cries of the prisoners are muffled by their torturers. And the ‘death’ is not the death of Hong Kong as such – for Hong Kong will always live on in the hearts and minds of Hong Kongers wherever they are, in prison, in exile, in hiding or in silence – but the death of what was promised to Hong Kong: “one country, two systems”, a high degree of autonomy, “Hong Kong people running Hong Kong”, freedom and the rule of law.

And we begin 2021 with yet more sadness. Not the crack of a police baton, nor the bang of rubber bullets, nor the suffocating smell of tear gas, perhaps, but instead the sound of prison doors clanging.

The sentencing of ten young Hong Kongers to prison in mainland China two days ago, simply for trying to leave Hong Kong in search of freedom, is the news that ushers in a New Year. Some might say we should welcome the leniency of their sentences, and the fact that two under-18s were returned to Hong Kong, and in some ways we should. But when you stop and think, that is the wrong way to look at it. They should never have been sentenced at all.

They were denied access to lawyers of their choice, medicines they had been prescribed, or contact with their families. In the CCP’s Orwellian double-speak, the trial was said to be ‘open’ and yet the courtroom was closed. Foreign diplomats who turned up to observe were turned away. That is not justice, it is not a verdict that the rule of law should respect, and the international community must not accept it.

Every possible effort should be made by the free world to ensure at a minimum that during their time in jail the ten prisoners are not mistreated or tortured, that they receive medical care, family visits and legal advice of their choice, that their names are kept alive in the public eye, that they are never ever forgotten and that they are returned to Hong Kong as soon as possible. The campaign to #save12hkyouths must go on, demanding the immediate release of the remaining 10.

That makes the book I have just finished reading all the more poignant. It is a new memoir by the former Russian dissident Natan Sharansky, titled Never Alone: Prison, Politics and My People. If you are looking for something to read in the New Year, I really recommend this. You should also read his other works, particularly The Case for Democracy which, along with my friend Ambassador Mark Palmer’s book Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World’s Last Dictators by 2025, form the foundations of my own thoughts about freedom and life. We only have four years to achieve Palmer’s goal, so we might not do it – but his ideas are worth studying nonetheless, as are Sharansky’s.

For as Sharansky notes, it was his fellow Russian dissident Andrei Sakharov who said: “Intellectual freedom is essential to human society”. Sakharov demanded “freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and fearless debate, freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices.” Sharansky himself concludes that “life in a dictatorship offers two choices: either you overcome your fear and stand for truth, or you remain a slave to fear, no matter how fancy your titles.” These are books written for Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow, Ivan Lam, the 10 Hong Kongers in jail in Shenzhen, for Edward Leung, Grandma Wong and Jimmy Lai – and they are books written for you and me too.

The CCP thrives on creating fear, and they are trying to turn Hong Kong into a society of fear. One in which neighbor reports on neighbor; one in which journalists face a choice – to risk their lives and liberty, as those who courageously work for this great newspaper do, to report the truth, or to choose to sell-out, abandon the story, ask the easy questions, like i-Cable’s Oscar Lee, in the hope of a quiet life, a pat on the back and praise for being ‘cooperative’ from Mrs Lam (which, personally, when I was still a journalist, I’d have taken as the worst insult ever); and a society in which priests and pastors face a choice – to preach the values of their religion, or the propaganda of the CCP. As news broke two days ago of the arrest in Beijing earlier this year of Chinese nuns working for the Vatican’s mission in Hong Kong, do clergy do what Cardinal Tong asks – be cautious in their homilies – or what Cardinal Zen does: speak the truth? “I don’t know for how long you can still hear my voice,” Cardinal Zen – my friend and hero – told Reuters recently. “So please pray for us.”

Everyone faces that choice – to overcome fear and stand for truth or be a slave to fear. It is not for me, sitting in the comfort of a free society, to tell you what you should or should not do. It is for me to use my freedom to speak up for you, and that I promise to do in 2021 as I have done for several years. But I will also remind you who is really afraid. It’s not you, the brave, dynamic, entrepreneurial, wonderful people of Hong Kong whom I have grown to love so much. No. The people who are really afraid are Mrs Lam, Xi Jinping and those who desire to hold on to power not in order to serve but because of fear of losing it. They are the emperors with no clothes, afraid of revealing their nakedness, clothed only in their fancy titles, counting their cash which they keep in their drawers.

Read Sharansky’s writings – quickly, before they’re banned in Hong Kong – and know that in your fight for freedom, to quote the title of his new book, you are “Never Alone”. The letter of the 44 public figures a year ago today, the letter of 904 Parliamentarians from 43 countries in protest at the national security law in July, and many other statements and actions by Hong Kong Watch and other groups around the world prove that. And in the long-term, that moral support is more powerful than any baton or tear-gas cannister or set of handcuffs. Freedom will prevail – we just don’t know when.

Happy New Year. Let 2021 be a better year for Hong Kong, for freedom and for the world.

Benedict Rogers is Co-Founder and Chief Executive of Hong Kong Watch. This article was published in Apple Daily on 1 January 2021.