CV NEWS FEED // After China’s communist government listed a British religious freedom expert as a “collaborator” with Catholic human rights activist and journalist Jimmy Lai, the expert wrote an article responding that he refuses to be intimidated by their accusations.
Catholic convert Benedict Rogers is the co-founder and chief executive of the human rights organization Hong Kong Watch and author of “The China Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the Chinese Communist Party’s Tyranny.”
Rogers wrote an article for The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation on January 9 criticizing the Chinese government’s attempts to intimidate Lai’s defenders. Lai is currently on trial in Hong Kong.
“Accused under Hong Kong’s draconian National Security Law of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and publishing ‘seditious’ materials, in reality Jimmy Lai is charged,” Rogers wrote, “with the crimes of conspiracy to commit journalism, for daring to publish stories and opinions which Beijing dislikes, conspiracy to talk about politics to politicians, and conspiracy to raise human rights concerns with human rights organizations.”
“This farce must end,” he emphasized.
Jimmy Lai, 76, has been in prison for over three years. Chinese government officials arrested him “for speaking out against the Chinese government in his newspaper, the Apple Daily,” CatholicVote previously reported. The Chinese-born Lai is a citizen of the United Kingdom. Before his costly confrontation with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Lai was a tremendously successful media tycoon and a billionaire.
Lai’s trial began in mid-December. Rogers wrote that on January 2, “I woke up to the surreal news that I was among several foreigners named as Mr Lai’s ‘collaborators’.”
“According to media reports, in court the prosecution displayed a chart labeled ‘Lai Chee-ying’s external political connections’, showing headshots of me [and] my friend Luke de Pulford and former US Consul-General to Hong Kong James Cunningham,” Rogers wrote. Former U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and former U.S. General Jack Keane were also included on the list, Rogers noted.
“I feel honored to be in such company,” he wrote:
The next day, among its so-called “evidence”, the prosecution produced a text message that Mr Lai had sent me in 2019, asking me to ask the last governor of Hong Kong Lord Patten to provide a comment to his Apple Daily reporters. It was completely bizarre that a perfectly normal, legitimate, day-to-day journalistic activity is now cited as proof of a “crime” in a court of law.
Other accusations against several friends of Rogers’ are “more serious,” he continued:
They are accused of being co-conspirators with Mr Lai, who is accused of being the “mastermind” of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and particularly the protests in 2019.
Such accusations are ludicrous. The mere suggestion that several million Hong Kongers took to the streets in 2019 at Mr Lai’s instruction is fantasy.
“It is a gross insult to the intelligence and character of Hong Kongers, as it suggests that they could not think and act for themselves,” Rogers continued. “And it fails to take into consideration the diversity of opinion within Hong Kong’s democracy movement.”
Rogers likened Lai’s situation to a famous scene from “Alice in Wonderland.” The tyrannical Queen of Hearts puts Alice on trial for nonsensical reasons and says she would prefer to give Alice a “sentence first” and a “verdict afterward.” Lai’s trial “is reaching Alice In Wonderland levels of ridiculousness,” Rogers wrote.
Rogers pointed out that Lai has always strongly opposed violent actions and protests, and the “suggestion that this successful entrepreneur is, as the prosecution alleged, a ‘radical political figure’ is a sign of Beijing’s unhinged paranoia.”
Rogers added that he personally knows Lai, so the uncertainty of what may happen to Lai, as well as how the CCP may use their conversations against him, is especially difficult.
“To recall the lunches and dinners you had with him, to reflect that you may never see him again,” he wrote, “and worse – to consider that every conversation you have had with him is now considered a ‘crime scene’, potentially used as evidence against him – is both gut wrenching and ludicrous.”
Rogers has previously called for the British government to take action against the “outrageous injustice” of the CCP’s persecution of Lai.
“The British government owes it to Mr Lai, to us and to itself to speak out against this Alice in Wonderland charade,” he concluded:
Being named in the proceedings against Mr Lai will never silence me – indeed, it only makes me more determined to redouble my efforts to fight for his freedom. Until he is released, I will never stop saying #FreeJimmyLai.
