Posted on 12/01/2022 6:23:12 PM PST by marshmallow
HONG KONG (CNS) — A Hong Kong Court fined Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, 90, and five others for failing to register a humanitarian fund set up to help people arrested in anti-government protests pay legal fees.
Cardinal Zen, retired bishop of Hong Kong, was fined 4,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$512) for failing to register the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund. He was a trustee of the fund, and four other trustees and its secretary also were charged under the Societies Ordinance, a colonial-era law dating to 1911 that has since been revised.
The ordinance says “any club, company, partnership or association of persons, whatever the nature or objects, to which the provisions of (the) ordinance apply” must register with the police commissioner or ask for an exemption. Prosecutors said the now-defunct fund should have been registered with police due to its “massive” size and “systematic” mode of operation.
The other former trustees fined the same amount were barrister Margaret Ng, former lawmaker Cyd Ho, scholar Hui Po Keung and popular singer Denise Ho. The fund’s secretary, Sze Ching-wee, was fined 2,500 Hong Kong dollars for his role.
In May, all six also were arrested on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces under a harsh 2020 national security law that China’s ruling Communist Party imposed on the city to stifle dissent after protests had roiled the city’s streets during the second half of 2019. Cardinal Zen has long been an outspoken pro-democracy advocate and supported protesters at the time, as he had done previously.
The six have yet to be charged under the national security law.
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