By Hans Tse

Copyright hongkongfp

Cardinal Stephen Chow said earlier this month that “religious persecution per se is not happening in Hong Kong” as he defended the state of civil liberties in the city.

Speaking in Parramatta, Australia, on September 15, Chow also urged people to visit Hong Kong to see for themselves.

“I sincerely say that religious persecution per se is not happening in Hong Kong,” Chow said during a public dialogue that was livestreamed on YouTube.

“I’ve also checked with other churches and religions in Hong Kong. None of them said they [had] experienced that,” he said in response to a question from the floor roughly an hour into the event.

The event, titled “A Conversation With Cardinal Stephen Chow SJ: On Bridge-Building,” was part of the “Bishop Vincent Presents” series, named after Australia’s Bishop Vincent Long and organised by the Diocese of Parramatta.

In the talk, Chow spoke of a wide range of issues, including his appointment as the bishop of the Catholic Diocese in Hong Kong in 2021 and the relationship between China and the Holy See.

He defended the state of religious freedom in Hong Kong, arguing that China wants to maintain the liberty in the city.

“I believe Beijing wants to keep the religious freedom intact in Hong Kong because Hong Kong is important for China – still important – if not for the financial thing,” he said.

“Common law, religious freedom, all these are important for people to believe [in] one country, two systems,” he said, referring to the governing principle of Hong Kong since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

“So I think at the moment we still enjoy a lot of freedom,” he added.

‘Wrong’ media reports

Chow also levelled criticism against news media for alleged coverage of his predecessor, Cardinal Joseph Zen, when Father Richard Leonard, the moderator of the dialogue, asked him to elaborate on “what went around the world that was just wrong.”

“Somehow, the media say that [Zen] was imprisoned. Not one day was he in prison. And they say that he was under house arrest. Not one day, he was under house arrest,” Chow said.

Chow did not specify which media organisations had made such reports.

Zen, 93, a vocal critic of Beijing, was convicted alongside four other democracy campaigners in Hong Kong in November 2022 for breaching the city’s Societies Ordinance.

They were found guilty of not registering a humanitarian fund, which was established in 2019 to support protesters arrested in the months-long demonstration that year. The fund has been defunct since 2021.

Zen and his co-defendants were each fined HK$4,000 over the case. The five have launched an appeal.

They were also arrested in May 2022 on suspicion of foreign collusion under the Beijing-imposed national security law, but have not been charged.

Zen has been on police bail, and his passport has been held by the authorities. However, the cardinal was allowed by a court to travel to the Vatican in April to attend the funeral of the late Pope Francis. He has since returned to the city.

In January 2023, Zen was also permitted to attend the funeral of Pope Benedict XVI.