A Hong Kong court on Thursday upheld a ruling against retired bishop and democracy advocate Cardinal Joseph Zen and four co-defendants for failing to register the humanitarian fund they created to help protesters arrested during the pro-democracy uprising of 2019.
Zen and his co-defendants were arrested in 2022 on “suspicion of colluding with foreign forces” under the odious “national security law” China imposed on Hong Kong in 2020.
The law was tailored to crush the pro-democracy movement by criminalizing all resistance to the Beijing-controlled city government. One of its provisions made “collusion with foreigners” into a crime, giving the government an easy way to throw protesters in jail by accusing them of colluding with foreign governments and media organizations.
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The Vatican expressed deep concern about Zen’s arrest and human rights groups around the world were outraged. Cardinal Zen was 90 years old at the time and needed a walking stick to make his court appearances.
Retired Chinese cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-Kiun, left, and Jimmy Lai’s wife Teresa Lai arrive at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts ahead of the sentencing for former Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai n Hong Kong, Monday, February 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
The cardinal and his colleagues were never actually charged under the national security law invoked as a pretext for arresting them. Instead, they were convicted in November 2022 of failing to properly register their organization, the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which they established to pay medical and legal fees for protesters who were arrested during the uprising. The fund was created in June 2019 and operated until September 2021, when the Hong Kong police threatened to investigate it under the National Security Law.
The charges were brought under the Societies Ordinance, a seldom-invoked 1949 Hong Kong law that requires organizations to either register or apply for an exemption from registration within one month of their creation. According to the Associated Press on Thursday, Cardinal Zen and his co-defendants are the first people to be convicted under the Societies Ordinance.
The penalties stipulated by the ordinance are not severe. The five were fined $4,000 Hong Kong dollars apiece, which works out to about $512 U.S. dollars. The defendants and their supporters nonetheless said the case set another chilling precedent for Hong Kong’s political freedoms.
One of the defendants, former pro-democracy lawmaker and 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund trustee Margaret Ng, said the case would have “a great impact on Hong Kong’s civil society.”
“We decided to appeal because this is an important issue to the whole society, not just to the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund or we, the trustees,” she said outside the court on Thursday.
In this photo provided by Egypt’s presidency media office, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, right, walks with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, at the Al-Ittihadiya Presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, September 2, 2026. (Egyptian Presidency Media Office via AP)
Ng said one of the most important issues was the vague definition of a “society” under the Societies Ordinance, making it easy to weaponize the law against any group the government dislikes.
The court ruled on Thursday that the term “society” has an “expansive definition,” and could include just about any group with more than ten associates. The three judges on the court also found that complying with the Societies Ordinance did not place an “unacceptably harsh burden” on the accused.
Nikkei Asia noted that several foreign consulates in Hong Kong sent representatives to observe the court hearing, including the American consulate.