A Catholic cardinal and others are arrested on Hong Kong security law : NPR

Hong Kong’s outspoken cardinal Joseph Zen, heart, and different spiritual protesters maintain placards with “Respects spiritual freedom” written on them throughout an illustration exterior the China Liaison Workplace in Hong Kong, Wednesday, July 11, 2012.

Kin Cheung/AP

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Kin Cheung/AP

Hong Kong’s outspoken cardinal Joseph Zen, heart, and different spiritual protesters maintain placards with “Respects spiritual freedom” written on them throughout an illustration exterior the China Liaison Workplace in Hong Kong, Wednesday, July 11, 2012.

Kin Cheung/AP

HONG KONG — A 90-year-old Roman Catholic cardinal, a singer and a minimum of two others have been arrested in Hong Kong on suspicion of colluding with international forces to hazard China’s nationwide safety, in an motion extensively condemned as an additional signal of Beijing’s erosion of rights within the metropolis.

The arrests additional increase a blanket crackdown on all types of dissent within the metropolis that seems more and more vindictive in prosecuting actions carried out previous to the enactment of the nationwide safety regulation. The crackdown is penetrating additional into the town’s long-respected financial, spiritual and academic establishments, together with non-governmental organizations, a lot of which have closed down their Hong Kong operations.

A police assertion stated arrests had been made Wednesday towards two males and two girls between the ages of 45 and 90 who had been trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Aid Fund, which supplied authorized assist to individuals who took half in 2019 pro-democracy protests that had been quashed by safety forces.

One other individual, recognized solely as a 37-year-old man, was cited for failing to correctly register the fund, which closed down in 2021. These arrested had been ordered to give up their journey paperwork and could be launched on bail.

Additional arrests within the case are pending, the police assertion stated, which didn’t establish these detained by identify.

“Police investigations present that the above-mentioned individuals are all trustees of the ‘612 Humanitarian Assist Fund,’ suspected of make requests of international or abroad companies, imposing sanctions on the Hong Kong Particular Administrative Area (and) endangering nationwide safety,” the assertion stated.

These concerned had been recognized by rights teams as Cardinal Joseph Zen, singer-actress Denise Ho, lawyer Margaret Ng, scholar Hui Po-keung and former Legislative Council member Cyd Ho Sau-lan. It wasn’t clear if Hui had been formally arrested. Zen was seen leaving a police station shortly earlier than midnight Wednesday.

Scores of pro-democracy activists have been arrested below a sweeping Nationwide Safety Regulation imposed on the town by Beijing in 2020 following the demonstrations, together with veteran lawmaker Martin Lee and writer Jimmy Lai. The town’s impartial media have been gutted and its legislature reorganized to pack it with Beijing loyalists.

Zen, the retired archbishop of Hong Kong, is a fierce critic of China and has been blistering in his condemnation of the Vatican’s 2018 settlement with Beijing over bishop nominations, which he has stated was a sellout of underground Christians in China.

The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, stated the Holy See “realized with concern the information of the arrest of Cardinal Zen and is following the evolution of the scenario with excessive consideration.”

Ho additionally has been outspoken in her advocacy of civil and political rights. Her supervisor, Jelly Cheng, confirmed Ho’s arrest however stated she had no different info.

Hui was arrested at Hong Kong’s worldwide airport as he sought to go away the town, the U.Okay.-based human rights group Hong Kong Watch stated.

“In the present day’s arrests sign past a doubt that Beijing intends to accentuate its crackdown on fundamental rights and freedoms in Hong Kong,” stated the group’s chief government, Benedict Rogers.

“We urge the worldwide group to shine a lightweight on this brutal crackdown and name for the rapid launch of those activists,” Rogers stated.

The White Home additionally known as on China and Hong Kong authorities to stop focusing on Hong Kong advocates and instantly launch Zen and others who had been “unjustly detained and charged,” deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated Wednesday.

A number of main Kong Kong activists have fled to Taiwan, Britain or elsewhere, whereas 1000’s of different Hong Kongers have chosen to go away the town, elevating issues concerning the financial way forward for the Asian monetary heart of seven.4 million individuals.

The arrests comply with the choice on Sunday of Hong Kong’s new chief, John Lee, a hard-line former safety chief who ran unopposed in a course of managed by Beijing and is below U.S. sanctions for his position within the 2019 crackdown and ensuing occasions.

The European Union and international ministers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.Okay. and the U.S. — condemned the election as basically undemocratic and a betrayal of the “one nation, two programs” precept below which Hong Kong was alleged to retain its personal political, authorized and financial system for 50 years after the tip of British colonial rule.

Maya Wang, Human Rights Watch’s China senior researcher, stated arresting Zen for his peaceable actions “must be a stunning new low for Hong Kong, illustrating the town’s free fall in human rights prior to now two years.”

Zen’s arrest marks “the darkest day so far within the Chinese language Communist Get together’s incremental destruction of the vitality of Hong Kong and is more likely to provoke a reconsideration by the Vatican of its several-year lengthy diplomatic engagement with Beijing over the ordination of bishops,” stated Lionel Jensen, affiliate professor of East Asian languages and cultures on the College of Notre Dame, who helped welcome Zen to the U.S. faculty in 2019.

The arrests had been additionally condemned by U.S. politicians, with Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, a member of the Senate Choose Committee on Intelligence, saying it confirmed the ruling Communist Get together and its chief Xi Jinping had been “afraid of truth-tellers and labels them threats to nationwide safety.”

Xi is “completely scared of a 90-year outdated Catholic cardinal. Xi is a pathetic coward,” Sasse stated in a press release.