His papal encyclicals need to be read at the end of a grim year, especially for Myanmar, Hong Kong, China and North Korea
The death of Pope Benedict XVI on New Year’s Eve brought a sad end to a grim year.
In 2022, we saw Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s increasing threats to Taiwan and North Korea’s ballistic missile tests, to name just three of the world’s challenges.
The year also witnessed inspiring protests in China and Iran, accompanied as expected by arrests and repression.
But it is in Myanmar and Hong Kong where the year ended much as it began, with heart-breaking news of yet more intensifying assaults on the voices of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.
On Dec. 30, Myanmar’s democracy leader and former de facto head of government, Aung San Suu Kyi, was sentenced to a further seven years in prison, bringing her total jail sentence — based on multiple trumped-up charges — to 33 years. If she serves her entire sentence, the 77-year-old Nobel Peace Prize Laureate will be 110 years old by the end of it, meaning she is facing effectively a life sentence.
It is clear Myanmar’s ruling military regime, which seized power in a coup on Feb. 1, 2021, is determined that Suu Kyi will never again play an active role in politics or public life. Having toppled her government after she won a second term in office with an overwhelming mandate in the November 2020 elections, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and his illegal junta are prepared to do whatever it takes to secure their grip on power.
“Beijing has driven a dagger through the heart of Hong Kong’s legal system”
That same day, it was reported that one of Myanmar’s most prominent and outspoken Christian leaders, Reverend Dr. Hkalam Samson, faces charges under Myanmar’s Unlawful Association Act.
Reverend Samson, a former President and General Secretary of the Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC) and currently Chairman of the Kachin National Consultative Assembly, was arrested at Mandalay International Airport on Dec. 5 as he attempted to travel to Bangkok. He is reportedly held in Myitkyina prison and faces up to three years in jail if convicted. According to news reports, his family has been denied visits to him, and there are concerns about his health, as he is on medication for high blood pressure and bronchitis.
As if the news of Suu Kyi’s sentence and the charges made against Reverend Samson in Myanmar were not enough bad news for one day, Dec. 30 saw yet more setbacks for Hong Kong when the standing committee of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing issued an interpretation of Hong Kong’s National Security Law which gives the city’s chief executive the power to overturn court decisions and ban foreign lawyers.
It further ruled that articles 14 and 47 of the law allow the chief executive to decide unilaterally which lawyers are permitted to represent defendants and to choose the judges to preside over cases. It also empowers the National Security Committee to overrule judicial decisions, destroying any remaining last vestiges of judicial independence.
Beijing has driven a dagger through the heart of Hong Kong’s legal system and replaced it with one that resembles Alice in Wonderland meets George Orwell’s 1984.
While the impact will be far-reaching and devastating, Beijing’s ruling is aimed squarely at one man: the Catholic pro-democracy activist and entrepreneur Jimmy Lai. The 75-year-old founder of the Apple Daily newspaper which the authorities forced to shut down in June 2021 has already spent two years in jail and, like Suu Kyi in Myanmar, faces multiple charges.
On Dec.10, International Human Rights Day, he was sentenced to five years and nine months on fabricated fraud charges and has already served a 20-month sentence on charges of unlawful assembly, for his role in pro-democracy protests and a vigil to mark the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
His biggest trial, under the National Security Law, was supposed to begin last month but it was postponed until September this year after the Hong Kong government sought to overrule the Court of Final Appeal’s decision to permit his choice of British barrister Tim Owen, KC as his defense counsel. Now Beijing has given the Hong Kong government the green light to block Owen, and indeed to veto any defendant’s choice of lawyer.
“If we want to protect and promote freedom, the free world has to unite to tackle these two dictators”
As these tragedies were unfolding in Myanmar and Hong Kong just as the year drew to a close, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping had an online meeting, in which they vowed to strengthen their alliance against the West. These two dictators pose the greatest threat to freedom today and provide the political, diplomatic, military and economic life support that keeps other brutal regimes alive today.
If it were not for the support of China and Russia, neither the military junta in Myanmar nor Kim Jong-un’s despotic regime in North Korea would survive. As it is, the weapons supplied to the regime in Naypyidaw by Beijing and Moscow enable it to continue to perpetrate crimes against humanity and war crimes against its people, and the economic life support given to Pyongyang facilitates continuing crimes against humanity in North Korea.
In 2023, if we want to protect and promote freedom, the free world has to unite to tackle these two dictators who commit atrocities themselves and act as enablers for other tyrants’ crimes. We need concerted action to cut the lifelines that keep these regimes afloat or at least impose meaningful punitive consequences for their crimes and end impunity.
Ten years ago, the situation in both Myanmar and Hong Kong was very different. In Hong Kong, while “one country, two systems” was showing some signs of strain, no one predicted then its total destruction a decade later.
And Myanmar appeared to be emerging into a period of reform and opening. Suu Kyi had been released from years under house arrest and was in dialogue with the then-military ruler, Thein Sein. Hundreds of political prisoners were freed. I was able to return to the country, despite having been deported the previous year. There was at least the flickering dawn of cautious optimism.
In January 2012, I met some of the most prominent pro-democracy activists in Myanmar, soon after they were released, including the ‘88 Generation’ leaders Min Ko Naing, Ko Ko Gyi, Ko Mya Aye, Ko Htay Kywe and Ko Jimmy, as well as future Member of Parliament Phyo Zeya Thaw.
“Think of the tears of young mothers and their infant children languishing in jungle camps”
Earlier in 2022, Ko Jimmy and Phyo Zeya Thaw were executed by the military regime. I first met Suu Kyi on that visit too. Today, it is unlikely that I will ever meet her again, or even be able to visit the country I love — and where, on Palm Sunday 2013, I became a Catholic.
In his New Year message, Myanmar’s Cardinal Charles Bo — who inspired, mentored and received me into the Church — said his people “gasp for peace.”
He called for a nationwide ceasefire for the month of January, for humanitarian corridors to be established so aid can freely reach “areas of acute humanitarian crises,” and for people to “wage other wars together” against pandemics, climate change, economic turbulence and the illicit economy. “Think of the tears of young mothers and their infant children languishing in jungle camps,” he said.
He called on people to remember the Christmas message and to fight hatred, cruelty, barbarity, repression, and the “perversion of power” as God does – “With love. Unconditional love.” This, he argues, is “the only thing that power can’t fight. The only thing that power fears. The message of Christmas is peace conceived in the womb of love, fathered by justice.”
He is right. And that brings us back to Benedict XVI. When I was exploring Catholicism, before being received into the Church, I read all of his encyclicals, his trilogy of books on Jesus of Nazareth, and many of his other writings. He was one of the most significant influences and inspirations on my journey.
Indeed, it was on a visit to Pyongyang, via Beijing, that I read his three encyclicals — Deus Caritas Est, Spe Salvi, and Caritas In Veritate. The titles speak for themselves — God is Love, In Hope We Were Saved and Charity in Truth.
At the end of a grim year and as we begin a new one, let us pray for the world — and for Myanmar, Hong Kong, China, and North Korea in particular. And let us pray that the messages of Benedict XVI’s encyclicals are read far and wide. God knows, the world needs to hear them.
*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.
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