Hong Kong police arrested on Tuesday night a retired Catholic bishop and four other individuals who ran a fund that financially supported pro-democracy protestors on charges of “collusion with foreign forces.”
A legal source confirmed to Reuters that Cardinal Joseph Zen, 90, had been detained under this pretense. He is in custody at the Chai Wan police station, a police sergeant told Reuters. The officer said Zen was being questioned for his involvement.
Zen was reportedly released on bail from Chai Wan Police Station at around 11 pm on Wednesday, according to multiple outlets including the Financial Times.
“He did not speak. He then entered a private car parked outside the police station. The 90-year-old was accompanied by five people when he left the police station,” the Hong Kong Free Press tweeted.
The Vatican was “concerned” about the cleric’s arrest, AFP News Agency reported and said in a statement that it was “following the development of the situation with extreme attention,” the Catholic News Agency reported.
“The Holy See has learned with concern of the news of the arrest of Cardinal Zen and is following the developments of the situation with extreme attention,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement. Pope Francis has not yet commented on the incident.
The other four who were arrested included senior barrister Margaret Ng, activist and pop singer Denise Ho, former lawmaker Cyd Ho, and former academic Hui Po-keung, Reuters noted.
Zen gained notoriety for speaking out against the Chinese Communist Party regime and its repression of pro-democracy dissenters in Hong Kong as well as Catholics in the country.
Hong Kong has been known to be a haven for Catholic organizations and missions.
Arrests like that of Zen’s have increased since Beijing enacted a strict national security law in June 2020 that authorized police to target terrorism, collusion with foreign forces, subversion and secession, and other conspiratorial activities hostile to the government with long and punitive prison sentences.
The five had operated the “612 Humanitarian Relief Fund,” now defunct, which helped demonstrators who had been arrested during pro-democracy, anti-China protests in 2019 to help pay their legal and medical fees.
Authorities had reportedly been probing the organization for national security law violations since last September.
The five arrests are consistent with China’s poor human rights record over recent years, which also includes the genocide of the Uighur Muslim minority in the Xinjiang region, military aggression towards Taiwan, and the oppression of Tibetan citizens.
Since the arrests, some Republicans have condemned China’s autocratic president Xi Jinping for presiding over a security state that persecutes people of faith.
Senator Ben Sasse, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement: “Chairman Xi – the world’s most powerful dictator – is absolutely terrified of a 90-year old Catholic cardinal. Xi is a pathetic coward. The Chinese Communist Party is afraid of truth-tellers and labels them threats to national security – men and women like Zen who shine a light on the CCP’s evil. Free people around the world must keep telling their stories. The Chinese Communist Party cannot erase the courage of Cardinal Zen and other Chinese heroes.”