CARDINAL ZEN HELD ON CHARGE OF COLLUSION
Former bishop of Hong Kong arrested with ex-lawmaker Margaret Ng and singer Denise Ho, all trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund
The national security police yesterday arrested Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, former opposition lawmaker Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee and singer Denise Ho Wan-sze, accusing the three opposition activists of colluding with foreign forces, according to sources.
The three were trustees of the now-defunct 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which was set up to help those involved in the anti-government protests of 2019 and came under intense scrutiny by authorities over the past year.
A fourth trustee, former Lingnan University academic Hui Po-keung, was also arrested by national security police on Tuesday as he was about to catch a flight to Germany, a source said.
“Hui claimed he would transit in Frankfurt and was heading to Venice, Italy, for a teaching task there,” the insider said.
The Post learned yesterday that Hui had been put on a list of people who would be stopped by law enforcers if they tried to leave Hong Kong via the airport or other control points.
The fund’s remaining trustee, Cyd Ho Sau-lan, is already in jail for her role in illegal assemblies.
As of yesterday evening, those arrested were still being held for questioning and had not been charged.
Just before midnight, police confirmed the arrests of two men and two women, aged between 45 and 90, for allegedly colluding with foreign forces. The force said the national security department mounted the operations across the city on Tuesday and yesterday.
“Investigations showed that the suspects were trustees of 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund. They were accused of urging foreign organisations to [impose] sanctions against Hong Kong which could endanger national security,” the spokesman said. “Arrest operation is still ongoing.”
Zen, 90, became a cardinal of the Catholic Church in 2006 and retired three years later. The outspoken former bishop of Hong Kong was active in the city’s political events, including the annual June 4 candlelight vigil, the Occupy protests of 2014 and the anti-government protest movement of 2019.
He has been repeatedly attacked by the pro-Beijing camp for his staunch support of human rights and his criticisms of the Hong Kong and central governments.
Denise Ho, 45, has also been an influential figure of the activist movement. In July 2019, she delivered a speech to the United Nations Human Rights Council calling on the body to remove China as a member and convene an urgent session to protect Hongkongers.
Ho said the Vienna Declaration guaranteed democracy and human rights but they were under serious attack in Hong Kong, a reference to the government’s extradition bill, which would have enabled the transfer of criminal suspects to jurisdictions with which the city did not have an agreement, including the mainland. At that point, Chinese delegate Dai Demao interrupted her, complaining Ho had challenged the one-China principle.
Cyd Ho, 67, joined the Legislative Council in 1998 and served for 14 years, focusing mainly on the rights of sexual minorities and women. Last year she was convicted of taking part in illegal assemblies in August 2019 and October 2019, and jailed for a total of 22 months.
Ng, 74, is a barrister and served as a lawmaker from 1995 to 2012. She was given one year in jail, suspended for 24 months, for organising, publicising or taking part in several unauthorised assemblies in 2019.
Since it was founded in 2019, the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund had distributed more than HK$243 million to protesters facing prosecution or financial hardship as a result of the social unrest.
But the fund announced it would close in October 2021 given “the current political environment”, and abruptly stopped taking donations a month earlier than expected after police opened an investigation into its activities for suspected breaches of the national security law.
It said at the time the Alliance for True Democracy, an opposition group advocating universal suffrage and which helped to collect donations, had notified the fund that it would stop executing its requests for payment out of the bank account it used.
Police had sent letters to key leaders in charge of the fund, as well as the alliance, demanding operational information, citing powers granted under the national security law.
In a rare acknowledgement, police issued a statement in September confirming the National Security Department was looking into the fund for suspected violations of the national security law and ordered it to hand over information, including details of donors and recipients.
Hui was formerly with Lingnan University’s department of cultural studies. The university terminated his employment in the same month.
National security police arrested Ng and Denise Ho along with five others connected to Stand News in December 2021 for publishing content authorities alleged was seditious and stirred up hatred against the government. The online news platform shut down and dismissed all its staff immediately after the arrest.
Benedict Rogers, co-founder and chief executive of the Britainbased pro-democracy advocacy group Hong Kong Watch, said the arrests showed Beijing intended to ramp up its crackdown on basic rights and freedom in the city.
“We condemn the arrests of these activists, whose supposed crime was funding legal aid for pro-democracy protesters back in 2019,” he said.
[Their] supposed crime was funding legal aid for pro-democracy protesters
BENEDICT ROGERS, HONG KONG WATCH