{"id":1471873,"date":"2022-05-11T15:14:41","date_gmt":"2022-05-11T19:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1471873"},"modified":"2022-05-11T15:14:45","modified_gmt":"2022-05-11T19:14:45","slug":"crackdown-on-basic-rights-and-freedoms-90-year-old-cardinal-arrested-on-suspicion-of-endangering-communist-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/crackdown-on-basic-rights-and-freedoms-90-year-old-cardinal-arrested-on-suspicion-of-endangering-communist-china\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Crackdown On Basic Rights And Freedoms\u2019: 90-Year-Old Cardinal Arrested On Suspicion Of Endangering Communist China"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcrackdown-on-basic-rights-and-freedoms-90-year-old-cardinal-arrested-on-suspicion-of-endangering-communist-china%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1471873&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/05\/Cardinal-Joseph-Zen-scaled-e1652291636509.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span>A Roman Catholic cardinal was arrested Wednesday by Hong Kong authorities on suspicion that he endangered communist China\u2019s national security by colluding with foreign forces.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Cardinal Joseph Zen, 90 \u2013 along with three others \u2013 was arrested by Hong Kong\u2019s National Security Police, the Associated Press <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/entertainment-religion-china-arrests-beijing-63d20b3a98288c10f610311b52ecd5a6\"><span>reported<\/span><\/a><span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cToday\u2019s arrests signal beyond a doubt that Beijing intends to intensify its crackdown on basic rights and freedoms in Hong Kong,\u201d said Benedict Rogers, the CEO of U.K. human rights group Hong Kong Watch. \u201cWe urge the international community to shine a light on this brutal crackdown and call for the immediate release of these activists,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Zen\u2019s arrest was reportedly connected to his involvement with the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, \u201cwhich provided legal aid to people who took part in 2019 pro-democracy protests that were quashed by security forces, the group said,\u201d according to the AP.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Since 2020, communist China has cracked down on pro-freedom activists in Hong Kong, arresting many under the ill-defined National Security Law imposed by Beijing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Zen has criticized the Vatican for its 2018 agreement with the communist country for bishop nominations, the AP noted. The cardinal believes the agreement \u201cwas a sellout of underground Christians in China.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>For the Vatican\u2019s part, it expressed concern with \u201cthe news of the arrest of Cardinal Zen and is following the evolution of the situation with extreme attention,\u201d Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The three others arrested in Hong Kong included singer and actress Denise Ho, lawyer Margaret Ng, and scholar Hui Po-kueng, who were all reportedly arrested for their roles with the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Just hours after Zen was arrested, the cardinal was reportedly released on bail from the Chai Wan Police Station.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NOW?src=hash&#038;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#NOW<\/a> Cardinal Joseph Zen, 90, has just been released on bail from Chai Wan Police Station after being arrested by authorities over his links to a fund supporting <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/HK?src=hash&#038;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#HK<\/a> protesters<\/p>\n<p>Zen, an outspoken critic against the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Chinese?src=hash&#038;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Chinese<\/a> Communist Party, waved to the media as he got onto a car <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4ggDK4lTnH\">https:\/\/t.co\/4ggDK4lTnH<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/EBBljqQjwK\">pic.twitter.com\/EBBljqQjwK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Chan Ho-him (@ThomasHHChan) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ThomasHHChan\/status\/1524409203997102080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 11, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>The arrests come days after Hong Kong selected a pro-Beijing former security chief to be its next leader through a closed voting process. The Daily Wire <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/hong-kongs-next-leader-pledged-to-end-the-ideology-of-hong-kong-independence\">reported<\/a> that John Lee was selected after being the only candidate on the ballot. Lee\u2019s selection is widely viewed as part of communist China\u2019s continued attempts to maintain control over Hong Kong. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cChoosing [Lee] signals that the Chinese Communist Party is not confident about security in Hong Kong. It also lets us know that the central government continues to distrust the Hong Kong government and people,\u201d John Burns wrote in a column for the Hong Kong Free Press.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Roman Catholic cardinal was arrested Wednesday by Hong Kong authorities on suspicion that he endangered communist China\u2019s national security by colluding with foreign forces.Cardinal Joseph Zen, 90 \u2013 along<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":324,"featured_media":1482631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1471873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/324"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1471873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1482631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1471873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1471873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1471873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}