Hong Kong Police Arrest, Question 90-Year-Old Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen

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HONG KONG — Cardinal Joseph Zen, one of the highest-ranking Catholic clerics in Asia, and three others who helped run a now-dissolved Hong Kong fund for protesters were arrested on charges of “collusion with foreign forces” and later released on bail. .

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Zen, a 90-year-old former Hong Kong bishop, was questioned for several hours on Wednesday at the Chai Wan Police Station, near his church residence, before being released on bail. The silver-haired Zen, who was wearing a white clerical collar, left without making any comment to the media.

Local police said in a statement that the police force’s national security department had arrested two men and two women, aged between 45 and 90, for “collusion with foreign forces” on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Police said they were suspected of calling for foreign sanctions. All were released on bail with their passports confiscated under the national security law, police said.

A legal source familiar with the matter had previously told Reuters that five people had been arrested in connection with the case: Zen; senior attorney Margaret Ng, 74; activist and pop singer Denise Ho; former legislator Cyd Ho; and former scholar Hui Po-keung.

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Zen has long been a champion of democratic causes in Hong Kong and mainland China, speaking out against China’s growing authoritarianism under President Xi Jinping, including a national security law imposed by Beijing and the persecution of some Roman Catholics in China.

Hui had been arrested at the airport on Tuesday night, according to news reports, while Cyd Ho was already in prison on another case.

The five were trustees of the “612 Humanitarian Relief Fund” that helped protesters who had been arrested during the pro-democracy and anti-China protests in 2019 to help them pay their legal and medical fees.

Hong Kong has long been one of the most important Catholic beachheads in Asia, home to an extensive network of aid agencies, academics and missions that have supported Catholics in mainland China and elsewhere.

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Beijing imposed the sweeping national security law in June 2020 that punishes terrorism, collusion with foreign forces, subversion and secession with possible life in prison.

The Vatican said Wednesday that it had learned of Cardinal Joseph Zen’s arrest in Hong Kong “with concern” and was following developments “with extreme attention.”

Reuters could not immediately reach the others for comment. The Hong Kong Catholic Diocese had no immediate comment.

The “612 Humanitarian Aid Fund” was eliminated last year after the dissolution of a company that had helped receive donations through a bank account.

The arrests come after police said last September that they had begun investigating the fund for alleged violations of the national security law.

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US Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell said the US was concerned about “repression” in Hong Kong, including in religious and academic circles.

“All I can tell you is that I think we are increasingly concerned about steps in Hong Kong to pressure and eliminate civil society,” Campbell told an online event in Washington when asked about the arrests.

Hui, an associate professor of cultural studies at Lingnan University, once taught exiled democracy activist Nathan Law.

“If you want to punish someone, you can always find an excuse,” Law wrote on his Facebook page in response to Hui’s arrest.

Critics say the security law erodes freedoms promised by China under a “one country, two systems” agreement when Hong Kong was returned to British rule by China in 1997.

Hong Kong authorities, however, say the law has brought stability to the city after the 2019 mass demonstrations.

(Reporting by Jessie Pang, James Pomfret, Greg Torode, and the Hong Kong staff; additional reporting by Philip Pullella in Rome, David Brunnstrom, and Michael Martina in Washington; editing by Nick Macfie, Mark Heinrich, and Alex Richardson)