You’re listening to part two of a Barefoot Lawyer Reports on China interview with Father Robert Sirico on the arrest and trial of human rights activist Jimmy Lai. To listen to the other parts of this episode, please check the links in the description.

Fr. Sirico: So I just googled, “What kind of a visa do I need to get into Hong Kong?” I found out that Americans don’t need a visa to get into Hong Kong. So I thought, “Well, I’m going to go to Hong Kong.” This disturbed a number of friends of mine. But I wrote to Bill McGurn and I said, “I want to go to Hong Kong.” He said, “I think that’s a great idea.” So I did. I figured, “Seriously, the worst that would happen is they would turn me away at customs.” I didn’t think they were going to arrest an American Catholic priest. I also hold Italian citizenship. So they would have had the Vatican, they would have had Americans, and they would have had Italy to deal with should they decide to turn me away. Or maybe, my quip going to be once I got into Hong Kong was, “Gee, what do you have to do to get arrested in this country?”

I tried my best to proclaim freedom and have been very direct about. So I got into the country and I didn’t go in with my own electronics, like my computer and my phone. All of those things I left outside. I went in with a burner phone, no computer and just a few names on my phone just to let people know how things were going. I went to the hotel as I drove through Hong Kong that night. And then the next few days that I was there – I got there on Saturday – everything was crazy. You know, people ask me when I’ve come back, “What’s it like? What’s Hong Kong like?” I always used to say, “it’s like New York’s Chinatown on steroids.” 

But the fact is, now it’s New York’s Chinatown on Valium. It’s amazing how the energy level has just been reduced. There are not as many people in the streets, not as many people in the shops or in the restaurants, and I talked to a lot of people about this, both formally and informally. They all agreed that something had happened, and it began before COVID. I’m sure Covid has had its own effect on Hong Kong the way it’s had its effect everywhere, but this occurred before they started removing kids from schools and going abroad. There are a lot of people that have already left and then a lot of mainland Chinese coming in.

I could see that even in some of the restaurants. I don’t speak Mandarin or Cantonese, but I can hear the difference in the two languages, and I can also see the difference in the culture. Putting a mainland Chinese person in the middle of Hong Kong is like putting a Brooklyn kid in the middle of Kansas. It just stands out.The conclusion I came to, based on these conversations with a wide variety of people, was that slowly but surely, the Communist government is taking over the various parts now. It’s not North Korea yet, it’s not mainland China yet, but Hong Kong is very much on its way there.

People whisper when they talk about things that they think might result in reaction. So I got in and walked the streets, met people in the streets, talked to cab drivers, talked to people at the hotel, talked to people in the church, and looked to see if I was being followed and it didn’t seem like I was. Then I went to the court for the trial itself. I had not notified Jimmy that I was coming, nor Teresa because I didn’t want them to be compromised in any way. They had nothing to do with my trip. It was as much a surprise to them as anybody; but it made for a very meaningful encounter, first with Teresa. I walked in the courtroom and ended up in her row inadvertently. I didn’t know who was supposed to sit where, so I just kind of took an open seat, and she walked in and you could just see how shocked she was in her eyes. She initially walked past me, and then she walked back. She said, “Well, I can greet a friend who’s come all this way.” I didn’t want to compromise her in any way and I didn’t want to give the impression that she had anything to do with my being there.

She said, “How is it that you’re here? Are you traveling around?” I said, “No. I came to Hong Kong for this purpose, this one purpose right now in this courtroom for one day. And I’m leaving tonight. And I want you to know that you’re loved by a lot of people and supported by a lot of people.” And she just cried. She sat down. Then Jimmy came into the docket. The docket’s a room with a lot of glass and just in front of it. I could see him with the security guards, and I was happy to see that he seemed to have a nice rapport with those security guards. He seemed comfortable with them. They were joking. He looked rested, he looked calm. He was dressed in civilian clothes. He looked over to see Theresa because he knew where she sat every day in the courtroom, and greeted her in the Asian greeting where you put your hands in front of your face and you bow slightly.

He greeted her that way, she greeted him that way. Then his eyes kind of wandered over and saw me, and he just was shocked, completely shocked. Then he did the same thing; he put his hands in front of his face and bowed toward me. I just made the Sign of the Cross in the air, and he began to cry, and I began to cry. Then I just sat through. The proceedings, which are, like legal proceedings, very boring. The three judges; two of them appeared to be Caucasian women and one of them was Chinese. The proceedings were all in English. There were some announcements in Cantonese at the beginning, just basic housekeeping announcements. The proceedings just went on, filing documents and putting things into the record, that kind of thing.

Bill Saunders: So you were there for that court session; did it last all day?

Fr. Sirico: It did. It all began at about 10:00, and at about 1:00, there was a break for lunch. Then I think it was 2:00 we came back and it went on for another hour and a half. Then there was some technical stuff that the lawyers wanted to present, so they went into recess to just hear these filings. I left and went straight to the airport.

Bill Saunders: What date was this?

Fr. Sirico: This was the day after Epiphany, so that would be the 8th of January.

Bill Saunders: What’s Jimmy’s status right now?

Fr. Sirico: Well, he’s arrested and being tried for treason. I think there’s several legal proceedings against him, but the most significant one is this accusation under the National Security Law, which was what he protested. When I was there, the prosecuting attorney was making the case that he’s treasonous. What the attorney was doing to establish the treason was to read off a series of emails, press releases, and bits of information of who Jimmy’s been in contact with, what he has written, what he said, and all these things. Basically, there was nothing that I heard in that entire 32 pages of this accounting that this lawyer was proceeding with, and there was nothing in any of that of what you would call conspiratorial. It was what he wrote in newspaper articles, what he said to friends, encouraging people to protest the National Security Law, especially the part of that law that a person could be extradited to mainland China. But there was nothing like him having a private meeting with people who were selling guns or anything like that. The only moment that I felt personally concerned, where I really saw the full impact of the state, was when I arrived at the courtroom. It’s in west Kualung, which everybody knows who’s been to Hong Kong. When I arrived, the entire building was encircled with barricades, and every few feet there’s a police officer with a machine gun. This entire block is wrapped around that way. Then if you look across the street, you can see that there are kind of tents or squads of police officers with machine guns and some kind of riot gear on the side as auxiliary, as though something is about to happen.

Just the presence of this police presence there was intimidating. I got out of the car and had to walk through a gaggle of maybe 30 to 50 newspaper reporters and paparazzi. They seemed very interested in the priest who was not Asian showing up. So I knew my face would be in the press, which was one of the reasons I had planned to leave immediately after the proceedings. Then you had to go through security checks and things like that. That was the only time I had this real sense of claustrophobia that I was entering into the belly of this beast that was holding my friend. When I was sitting in the antechamber to the courtroom, a journalist came over and she told me she’s from Bloomberg. She said that she wanted to know if I was one of the priests who had signed this letter, asking for the release of Jimmy Lai.

I said to her, “That letter was actually not signed by priests. It was signed by bishops and cardinals.” And I said, “I did not sign that because I’m not a bishop or cardinal, but I helped to organize it.” She said, “Oh, really?” I said, “Yes.” She said, “Well, who are you? What are you doing?” I said, “Well, I produced a film on Jimmy Lai called The Hong Konger.”, which she knew about. And she said, “You’re the producer of that?” I said, “Yes.” She said, “You’re very brave to be here.” I said, “Ma’am, if you want to see bravery, go inside that courtroom and look at that man in the dock.That’s bravery. I mean that very sincerely.” So she asked if she could interview me and I did an interview with her, on the condition that she not release the interview until after I left the country, which she observed. 

Bill Saunders: Yeah, it’s hard to think of a braver person than Jimmy Lai, although I must say, Father, to go through that took some courage yourself. 

Fr. Sirico: Not really. I didn’t feel that way. No, Jimmy’s courage speaks to the philosophical commitment and moral commitment he has. This is the thing that I think people need to understand; if you understand only one thing about this case, he could have left. He has a British passport. He has homes in any number of countries around the world. He doesn’t have any money coming from China or from Hong Kong, and he chose nothing not to. That’s the bottom line. That’s the kind of man that the communists are dealing with. I don’t know if they fully get that. 

Bill Saunders: It’s very, uh, much rooted in his Catholic faith.

Fr. Sirico: Yes, I think his Catholic faith has sharpened the clarity of his vision on this

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