The Foreign Office is to hold “urgent” talks with China after a Catholic human rights activist was denied entry to Hong Kong.
Benedict Rogers, a long-standing critic of Beijing and a writer for the Catholic Herald, was turned away while attempting to visit friends in the city’s pro-democracy movement.
The incident prompted protests among campaigners in Hong Kong and a terse diplomatic exchange between Britain and China.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told the BBC that he was “very concerned” that a British national had been denied entry and said he would seek an “urgent explanation” from Hong Kong and Beijing authorities.
China’s foreign ministry accused Mr Rogers of trying to interfere in Hong Kong’s affairs. Mr Rogers, co-founder of the Conservative Party’s Human Rights Commission, said that the idea was “absurd”.
“If having lunch and dinner, tea and coffee with people privately is meddling, then I suppose I plead guilty to that,” he told the Hong Kong Free Press. “But that’s a strange definition of meddling.”
Mr Rogers said he had been warned he might be denied entry by an MP acting as an intermediary for the Chinese embassy. He asked the MP to assure the embassy he would not speak to the media or visit human rights’ activists in prison as he originally intended.
Writing for the Guardian, Mr Rogers said the incident showed that the idea of “one country, two systems” was “dying rapidly, being rendered limb from limb with accelerating speed”. “The world,” he said, “must wake up to this.”
Last year Mr Rogers wrote an article for the Herald about China’s “evil secret” – the forced harvesting of political prisoners’ organs. In another piece he analysed talks between the Holy See and Beijing and urged Vatican officials to heed critics’ warnings.
Vatican hosts Essex cricketers
The Vatican’s cricket club defeated a team from Essex representing five different faiths in a friendly in Rome last weekend.
St Peter’s Cricket Club, which consists of priests and seminarians, were hosting a team assembled by Essex County Cricket Club and drawn from Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Sikh and Hindu backgrounds. St Peter’s won by 67 runs.
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.