Hong Kong Needs Our Help To Preserve Religious Freedom Not Just On Paper, But In Practice

The May arrest of 90-year-old Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen put Hong Kong’s religious community on edge. On Nov. 25, Zen and five others were found guilty of failing to register a now-defunct fund to support pro-democracy protesters. The verdict resulted in an HKD 4,000 fine (a little over $500), but Zen’s ordeal is far from over. More serious accusations under the city’s draconian National Security Law (NSL), for which official charges are yet to be filed, could put him in jail for the rest of his life.

Known as the “new conscience of Hong Kong,” Cardinal Zen has been a consistent champion of human rights and dignity for the people of both Hong Kong and mainland China. The accusations against him are not explicitly related to his role in the Catholic Church. Rather, like other prominent figures arrested under the NSL imposed on Hong Kong by the Chinese regime in 2020, his May arrest was due to his criticism of Beijing and open support of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. Like many other victims of the NSL, he is accused of the vague crime of “colluding with foreign forces” and will be prosecuted outside Hong Kong’s common law legal system, with no expectation of a fair trial.

On paper, Hong Kong is still a bastion of religious freedom. The city’s faithful continue to attend churches, mosques, and temples, albeit with some restrictions due to Covid-19. Christian missionaries continue to preach openly in the former British colony.

But those familiar with Beijing’s suppression of religious freedom on the mainland detect a familiar and worrying pattern. Last December, the police raided the Good Neighbour North District Church, which had a history of pro-democracy activism. Its assets and those of its preacher were frozen, eventually forcing it to shut down. While the government has denied its actions had anything to do with religion, the church and its preacher — like Zen — were targeted for actions inherently linked to the exercise of conscience.

Jeopardizing Religious Freedom

Left unchecked, this assault on freedom of conscience will jeopardize the freedoms of all religious sects, not just those that engage in political activism. Religious freedom on paper is meaningless in a society where people cannot speak and act according to their conscience. Other prisoners of conscience — including the Catholic Jimmy Lai, who also faces a possible life sentence for supporting democracy and running a now-discontinued newspaper that dared to criticize Beijing — cite their religious convictions as a key motivation for their activism.

Few expect the government to actually remove freedom of religion from the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution. The real danger is that the crackdown on conscience will, over time, stifle the free expression of religion until it exists in name only. Even China’s national constitution claims to guarantee freedom of religious belief and “normal religious activities,” but this doesn’t stop the government from raiding churches and detaining their clergy, and even throwing members of some Muslim groups into re-education camps. The former Soviet

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases