The following is part two of a Barefoot Lawyer Reports on China interview with Frances Hui by William Saunders, Director of the Center for Human Rights. To listen to other parts of this podcast, please check the link in the description.

Frances Hui: And eventually, priests might have to register with the Catholic Patriotic Association and to take oath of fidelity to the government. These are all really pressing concerns that everyone in Hong Kong is thinking about at this point. We really need to come together. I mean, the Vatican also needs to speak up on these problems and to advocate for persons of conscience who are currently sitting in jail simply for practicing their faith. Their advocacy for human rights is also a part of their way to bear witness of God. A lot of them have expressed that they took to the street and did what they were doing because they were inspired by their faith. But then we also see there is a blank silence from the Vatican, from other religious leaders about the situation in Hong Kong and these people who are jailed for their advocacy and for bearing witness of God through their activism.

Bill Saunders: Yeah. What do you expect would happen in terms of the indoctrination? Would it be, as I understand it, as it is in mainland China, that you eventually teach the sayings of Chairman Xi, you sing songs at Christmas time about Chairman Xi, you have his photograph or his painting at the front of the church, and all those kinds of things? You rewrite the Bible? I know that all those things are going on in the mainland. You expect that to happen in Hong Kong?

Frances Hui: So in the report I mentioned that my analysis is right, this is happening to China and we haven’t seen those signs in Hong Kong, but we do see early warning signs that eventually Hong Kong’s church and the religious communities will eventually face these challenges. For example, at school students are required to raise the PRC national flag every day at school. They would have to sing the National Anthem every day and have the flag up and flying. A lot of times it happens in the school hall right in front of some other secret symbols like the cross, a depiction of Jesus Christ, or an Islamic flag. It’s not a problem as we see in America to raise a national flag. The problem is the PRC national flag also symbolizes atheism, and having it raised in front of these sacred symbols is basically absurd. We also see curricula of religious studies are now mixed with patriotic socialist values, like the prayers in students textbooks on religious studies are basically praising and embracing the Chinese identity. There would be prayers talking about, oh, thank God for making me Chinese.

I would use my time and efforts to love my country and be a good citizen. This is not what we should be teaching. When I grew up in Hong Kong, I also learned and studied. I also had subjects of religious education. This is not what we learned. This is happening in school and in church. Again, priests have received complaints about discussing the government in their homilies. I mentioned that there is a protestant pastor who was sentenced to 13 months in prison under the National Security Law. And a few other people, more prominent persons of faith, like Cardinal Zen, Joshua Wong, and Jimmy Lai; they’re all persons of faith, and they are all subject to legal prosecution. They are jailed in Hong Kong for nearly 1200 days, simply for standing up for freedom and human rights.

I also think that the religious communities are basically politicized to downplay the human rights abuses happening in China and to promote and rally support for some other developments and initiatives by China. For example, the Muslim community, they have been to China. The Muslim community leaders in Hong Kong went on a trip to China. They take a high profile trip, with TV interviews and talking about how there’s no trouble, we see very good things in Xinjiang. There’s no Uyghur genocide. The things that are reported in Western media are all false. We see people who are Muslim brothers and sisters. They’re living peacefully and happily in Xinjiang.

They’re also doing all these workshops, talking about how great it is to be integrated into China. The employment opportunities that they have created. All of these are signs of the government using them as a political tool to downplay human rights abuses and to promote their own development initiative. China is also arranging a lot of these exchange trips for different religious leaders. Actually, throughout my research I have received, I found that the Catholic Church is now asking all the priests, seminarians, and religious sisters to go on a trip to Beijing and to learn about sinicization, to learn, and to meet the officials in China.

These are all ways to kind of change the theological discussions and as you said, it’s indoctrination to change minds. And the danger of it is, if there’s one priest, one sister, who basically listened to those ideologies and adopted them, it’s not only affecting themselves personally, it also changed the whole conversation and theological discussion in Hong Kong. It involves talks about the education of our next generation and what is being preached at church. So it has a huge impact on the religious communities. And these are all just small examples happening in different places. I’m trying to also learn more, get information, and continue to receive different perspectives.

I think that it’s developing really quickly in Hong Kong. I continue to receive different things from people in the diocese and people in Hong Kong. It’s not looking great. And I think we need to find a way to really make the Church stand up and to resist.

The Catholic University of America’s Center for Human Rights has published a documentary on the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights. The documentary features world class human rights experts, from former State Department officials to ambassadors and human rights activists. It can be found on our website at catholic.edu/chr