{"id":1757643,"date":"2022-12-01T03:02:47","date_gmt":"2022-12-01T08:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1757643"},"modified":"2022-12-01T03:02:52","modified_gmt":"2022-12-01T08:02:52","slug":"hong-kong-needs-our-help-to-preserve-religious-freedom-not-just-on-paper-but-in-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/hong-kong-needs-our-help-to-preserve-religious-freedom-not-just-on-paper-but-in-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong Needs Our Help To Preserve Religious Freedom Not Just On Paper, But In Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/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%2Fhong-kong-needs-our-help-to-preserve-religious-freedom-not-just-on-paper-but-in-practice%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=1757643&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--><p>The May <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/may\/16\/arrest-of-cardinal-zen-sends-chill-through-hong-kongs-catholic-community\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">arrest<\/a> of 90-year-old Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen put Hong Kong\u2019s religious community on edge. On Nov. 25, Zen and five others were <a href=\"https:\/\/hongkongfp.com\/2022\/11\/25\/breaking-hong-kong-court-convicts-cardinal-zen-and-5-others-over-failing-to-register-protester-relief-fund-as-society\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">found guilty<\/a> 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\u2019s ordeal is far from over. More serious accusations under the city\u2019s draconian <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/06\/30\/world\/asia\/hong-kong-security-law-explain.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">National Security Law<\/a> (NSL), for which official charges are yet to be filed, could put him in jail for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n<p>Known as the \u201cnew conscience of Hong Kong,\u201d 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\u2019s pro-democracy movement. Like many other victims of the NSL, he is accused of the vague crime of \u201ccolluding with foreign forces\u201d and will be prosecuted outside Hong Kong\u2019s common law legal system, with no expectation of a fair trial.<\/p>\n<p>On paper, Hong Kong is still a bastion of religious freedom. The city\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>But those familiar with Beijing\u2019s suppression of religious freedom on the mainland detect a familiar and worrying pattern. Last December, the police <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/dec\/08\/hong-kong-church-pastor-says-hsbc-froze-personal-and-charity-bank-accounts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">raided<\/a> 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 \u2014 like Zen \u2014 were targeted for actions inherently linked to the exercise of conscience.<\/p>\n<p> Jeopardizing Religious Freedom <\/p>\n<p>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 \u2014 including the Catholic <a href=\"https:\/\/victimsofcommunism.org\/award\/jimmy-lai\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Jimmy Lai<\/a>, who also faces a possible life sentence for supporting democracy and running a now-discontinued newspaper that dared to criticize Beijing \u2014 cite their religious convictions as a key motivation for their activism.<\/p>\n<p>Few expect the government to actually remove freedom of religion from the Basic Law, Hong Kong\u2019s 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\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npc.gov.cn\/zgrdw\/englishnpc\/Constitution\/2007-11\/15\/content_1372964.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">national constitution<\/a> claims to guarantee freedom of religious belief and \u201cnormal religious activities,\u201d but this doesn\u2019t stop the government from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/earlyrain-raid-08152022075406.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">raiding churches<\/a> and detaining their clergy, and even throwing members of some Muslim groups into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ohchr.org\/en\/press-releases\/2022\/09\/xinjiang-report-china-must-address-grave-human-rights-violations-and-world\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">re-education camps<\/a>. The former Soviet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With their religious liberty under attack, Hong Kongers need the support of the international community to preserve this fundamental freedom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1581,"featured_media":1757646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1757643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757643","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\/1581"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1757643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1757646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1757643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1757643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1757643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}