Benedict Rogers is a human rights activist and writer. He is co-founder and trustee of Hong Kong Watch, an advisor to several human rights organisations including the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), and specialises in China, Myanmar and North Korea
In a prison cell in the middle of Myanmar (Burma), isolated from other prisoners, sits an elderly woman who marks her 80th birthday today. She is serving a 27-year sentence. Yet she is no ordinary 80-year-old. Today, she should be approaching the end of her second term as de facto head of her country’s government,
As 133 cardinal electors gather in the Sistine Chapel tomorrow to begin the process of choosing a new Pope, there will be many considerations in their minds. They will be weighing up whether to build on or reject Francis’ legacy of progressive reform, whether to move in a more liberal or conservative direction, and whether
Myanmar, or Burma as it used to be known, has experienced far more than its fair share of tragedy over the past 75 years or more. The death and destruction caused by yesterday’s 7.7-magnitude earthquake is the latest in a litany of suffering which this beautiful but benighted South-East Asian nation has endured. I have
Four years ago, Myanmar’s fragile, nascent quasi-democracy was snuffed out after less than a decade of experimenting with limited reform and opening. In the early morning of 1 February 2021, armoured vehicles rolled down the capital’s absurd 20-lane empty highway. Adding to the surreal quality of the day, an aerobics instructor filming an exercise routine
Three years ago today, the military in Burma (or Myanmar, as the junta prefers to call it) plunged the country back into hell. On 1 February 2021, Burma’s army, led by commander-in-chief General Min Aung Hlaing, seized power in a coup. After a decade of apparent liberalisation, which saw political prisoners released, space for civil
Forty years ago today, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and China’s Premier Zhao Ziyang signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, an international treaty designed to pave the way for the handover of Hong Kong to China on 1 July 1997. Meeting in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, leaders of the Chinese Communist party (CCP)
Hong Kong has sentenced dozens of democracy protestors to years in prison, in the largest trial since Beijing’s National Security Law was imposed on the city in 2020. The imprisonment of the 45 former elected legislators and pro-democracy campaigners comes just a day after Keir Starmer met Xi Jinping, telling the Chinese leader that he
Ten years ago this week, a sea of yellow umbrellas filled the streets of Hong Kong in what at the time was the largest mass campaign for democracy in the city. In what became known as the ‘Umbrella Movement’, the people of Hong Kong courageously showed the world their desire for freedom – and their
Football has turned messy in Hong Kong. Last Sunday, the beleaguered Hong Kong Chinese Communist party was hoping for a public relations boost after Inter Miami agreed to play a friendly in the city against the Hong Kong Team. Instead, the game was overshadowed by a furious row after Miami footballer Lionel Messi failed to
The suggestion this weekend that an alleged Chinese spy is a British-born parliamentary researcher – leading a policy group aimed at countering the growing threat from Beijing – has sent shockwaves through Westminster and beyond. The individual denies the accusations and says he is ‘completely innocent’ but MPs who know him and many of us who interacted with him are
The brutal generals ruling Burma – or Myanmar as they officially call it – seem to take us for fools. Today the junta issued a ‘partial pardon’ for the country’s jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi and reportedly transferred her from prison to ‘a more comfortable state-owned residence’. By doing this, they hope to
As millions of Brits celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, others will be gathering outside the Chinese Embassy in London to mark a different event: the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Beijing has done its best to wipe this day from the history books, but it’s vital we don’t forget an event that has foreshadowed the direction
The Chinese Communist Party regime has always been censorious. Its so-called ‘Great Firewall’ means that Facebook, Twitter and Google are blocked in China, many are films banned and even Winnie the Pooh was persona non grata after netizens spotted his resemblance to Xi Jinping. In the Chinese version of Bohemian Rhapsody, references to Freddie Mercury’s
Deep in south-east Asia sits a country where 54 million people are living a total nightmare. A nation that, benighted for decades, now faces a humanitarian catastrophe. Myanmar – otherwise known as Burma – has been hit by a quadruple whammy: a military coup, a half-century long civil war reignited with a vengeance, economic collapse
The Chinese Communist party regime likes to portray itself as the new superpower, displaying its strength on the world stage. In reality it is an extraordinarily fragile, sensitive, fearful, petty and vindictive snowflake of a dictatorship that is so surprisingly un-self-confident that it responds to any criticism with aggression, any dissenting or disloyal idea with
The Chinese Communist Party regime’s repression is pervasive and intensifying. Over the past five years, Xi Jinping’s brutal assault on basic human rights has accelerated with horrifying ferocity and speed. But while the incarceration, forced sterilisation and enslavement of millions of Uyghurs is increasingly recognised as a genocide, and the dismantling of Hong Kong’s promised
Hong Kong’s legislature has today moved one step closer to becoming a local branch of the Chinese Communist Party, after the disqualification of four of the most moderate, mainstream pro-democracy legislators resulted in the resignation en masse of every single pro-democracy legislator in protest. For the first time since 1997 the body now has no
The Chinese Communist party made an announcement yesterday which effectively ends ‘one country, two systems’ in Hong Kong, and in so doing launched a brazen assault on the international rules-based order. They have also dramatically changed the very nature and way of life of the city which was once my home. Over the past six
The coronavirus has enforced a hiatus in Hong Kong’s widespread political unrest with worries about transmission stalling protests. Dissatisfaction with the government still festers, fuelled by the mishandling of the health crisis – all the ingredients are there for protests to reignite. But the lull in the unrest gives the Hong Kong government and their
Boris Johnson now has a hefty majority in Parliament. He can reshape Britain. He can redefine the Conservative party. And he can – to use a well-worn phrase – ‘get Brexit done’. Which also means that after more than three years of being engulfed with Brexit, the government can now begin to turn its attention to
