Apple Daily: 'One day when Hong Kong emerges from the tomb…', Benedict Rogers

Today is “Good Friday”, a day when Christians throughout the world remember the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. This week it has felt as if Hong Kong’s own Way of the Cross has intensified yet further, as yet more nails have been hammered into Hong Kong’s freedoms and the last remaining vestiges of any democracy are taken away.

The unanimous decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress to approve Beijing’s proposed changes to Hong Kong’s electoral system was no surprise. First announced three weeks ago, it was hardly likely that the Chinese Communist Party’s ultimate rubber-stamp body would do anything other than approve what the puppet legislative body had already passed. That’s the difference between their system and a democracy, and that’s precisely why they are making these changes.

In Beijing’s system, the regime may surprise us with particular turns, but once it has declared a policy, the system and process is predictable. The zombies do as instructed by their leaders and press the desired button. In a democracy, in contrast, a government proposes legislation, the legislature scrutinizes, questions, debates, amends and can potentially reject it. Beijing wants none of that.

Hong Kong of course never had full democracy, despite the promise of universal suffrage in the Basic Law. But at least, until last year, it had elected Legislative Councillors who could act as some check on the executive, and elected District Councillors who genuinely represented the people.

Now, Beijing will pack the Legislative Council with its hand-picked stooges. The directly elected seats will be reduced in number, and candidates contesting them will be pre-screened to ensure they will be truly ‘patriotic’. And we all know that for Beijing, ‘patriotism’ doesn’t simply mean an acceptance of China’s sovereignty over Hong Kong – something few democrats argue with. Instead it means slavish, poodle-ish, unthinking, total Carrie Lam-like devotion to the Party: a blind willingness to follow, a refusal to question, an unwillingness to think and an absolute disavowal of dissent.

Moreover, the Hong Kong police’s national security department has said that in the screening of candidates, if a violation of the National Security Law is discovered they will take “necessary action”. Given this ominous warning and the vague definitions and vindictive application of the draconian National Security Law so far, what self-respecting democrat will subject themselves to this humiliating and potentially dangerous process? It is the total defenestration of democracy. It is, as former Democratic Party leader Emily Lau put it, “a very dark day” for Hong Kong.

And yet this entire week, in keeping with the past two years, has had many dark days. The pressure on Hong Kong’s public service broadcaster RTHK to withdraw its entries from journalism awards organized by the Society of Publishers in Asia Awards (SOPA) and the Human Rights Press Awards is yet another blow to media freedom – especially when so many talented and brave reporters in Hong Kong deserve recognition.

Early warning signs of an impending attack on the arts and culture signal more dark days to come. The arts are increasingly coming under the purview of the National Security Law, rendering Hong Kong’s new M+ Museum – aimed at being a world class gallery – a censored construct. No Ai Weiwei, that’s clear – but which other artists will be deemed threats to national security? Just as Beijing has already sought to close Hong Kong’s political space, it now aims to shut down its creative space too.

The most chilling aspect of Beijing’s extended takeover of Hong Kong this week is the case of Andy Li. After just over six months in a Shenzhen jail following his attempted escape with 11 others from Hong Kong by boat, Mr Li was released and returned to his home town last week. He already faced National Security Law charges and so we all knew he would face trial, and probably a further prison term, in Hong Kong, but if the city wished to retain some semblance of the rule of law for which it has until recently been respected around the world, he should have been allowed to rejoin his family while awaiting trial. Or at least be permitted visits while in detention. Or, if required to quarantine separately from his family due to Covid-19 restrictions, his relatives should at least have been informed of his whereabouts, and permitted to contact him. Instead, it is reported that he is held in a psychiatric unit in an undisclosed location, with no family contact. This is not the way things are done in Hong Kong, though it is typical of the way the Chinese Communist Party behaves and is illustrative of how its tentacles are now completely wrapped around the city in a continuous strangulation.

In his court hearing, Mr Li was mysteriously represented by a lawyer whom the family had not chosen. Lawrence Law claims to be his legal counsel, but nobody associated with Mr Li knows anything about him. Again, this is not how things are done in Hong Kong, but it is very reminiscent of cases in mainland China. Not long ago people predicted the slow transformation of Hong Kong into just another mainland Chinese city under the grip of the Chinese Communist Party. The transformation is now becoming alarmingly more rapid.

I never talk about the death of Hong Kong, because Hong Kong is not dead – it will live on in the spirits of Hong Kongers, wherever they are. But clearly we are seeing the death of Hong Kong’s freedoms, autonomy, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. And it is heartbreaking. As my own country emerges from a Covid-19 lockdown, Hong Kong is entering yet more levels of crackdown – in flagrant, total and repeated breach of an international treaty, the Sino-British Joint Declaration, in which China promised that these things would not happen and Hong Kong’s way of life would endure, at least until 2047. Less than halfway through the 50-year period from the handover, the leaders in Beijing have proven themselves to be the liars that many feared. How anyone could ever trust the word of the Chinese regime ever again is beyond me.

But on this Good Friday, as we talk of the death of Hong Kong’s way of life, let us never forget that it’s not the end of the story. Three days after he was crucified, Jesus Christ miraculously came back to life. He is the ultimate Comeback Kid. And I have not given up hope that Hong Kong might one day similarly emerge from the tomb into which Xi Jinping’s regime has incarcerated it. For history shows that dictators don’t last forever, and that as Martin Luther King Jr put it, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”. Let us not forget another of Martin Luther King’s other sayings: “truth crushed to earth will rise again”. And let those of us enjoying freedom remember his warning that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere”. As Hong Kong walks its Way of the Cross today, I pledge to continue to work and pray for Easter – resurrection and new life – to come soon for the city that was once my home. And I won’t give up until it does.

Benedict Rogers is co-founder and Chief Executive of Hong Kong Watch. This article was published in Apple Daily on 2 April 2021. (Photo: Apple Daily)