Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, the 90-year-old retired bishop of Hong Kong, has been convicted of failing to register a humanitarian relief fund and fined 4,000 Hong Kong dollars (about £400) after being punished for supporting pro-democracy demonstrators during the mass protests in Hong Kong. The fine may seem small, but this is Beijing’s way of saying that even a frail and saintly cleric who walks with the aid of a stick is not safe to endorse democracy. No one is.
All Beijing has done is decided not to proceed with charges that Zen colluded with a foreign power. It has not withdrawn the charge
When Zen was arrested in May, Lord Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, pointed out that it coincided with the appointment of the former policeman John Lee as chief executive of its ‘puppet regime’. ‘Lee is not just any old cop,’ said Patten. ‘He got the job because he supervised the brutal 2019 crackdown on demonstrations in Hong Kong after two million residents protested against the city government’s plan to allow the extradition of criminal suspects to mainland China.’
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