- Los medios oficiales chinos le describen como "un agitador, a serious threat to the security of the State and the interests of the Nation"
- He has been to the University of Seville invited by the East Asian Studies Line of the Comlíticos group and by the Master in Communication and Culture
Mar Llera
19/12/2017
Benedict Rogers in Seville /Photo: M.LL.
"La sociedad civil vive hoy en China una represión sin precedentes, la más dura desde la masacre de Tiananmen en 1989". With this resounding statement it has just been presented at the University of Seville Benedict Rogers, profesional de la información convertido en activista proderechos humanos a quien los medios oficiales chinos describen como "un agitador, una grave amenaza para la seguridad del Estado y los intereses de la Nación".
Rogers has publicly recalled one of the first pieces of advice he received at the beginning of his working life.: “If you want to be a good journalist, you must be willing to suffer censorship at least once in your life. But try not to let that happen to you more than once., because otherwise you won't be able to make a career.”. Throughout the 20 years dedicated to information and activism, Rogers has tried to follow these directions, but things have not turned out as advised. It has bothered more than one tyrant, He has suffered in his flesh the bites of censorship on numerous occasions and has endured two deportations. Last October he was about to experience the third, but he didn't even set foot on his destiny: in the face of the scandal of international public opinion, Chinese authorities detained him at Hong Kong airport and returned him home. Travel to mainland China, for some time now he hasn't even tried.
Despite this, No one can say that this British man committed to justice and democracy to the point of putting his personal safety and even his life at risk has not made a “career.”. As head of East Asia in Christian Solidarity Worldwide, an NGO that defends the human right to freedom of conscience –both belief and atheism-, Ben doesn't stop. In just the last month he has visited Thailand, has raised his voice about the situation in Myanmar, has launched the observatory Hong Kong Watch, has presented it in the British Parliament, has advocated for the most vulnerable in the North Korean scenario, has participated in a congress in Sweden and has reminded the Brussels bureaucrats that politics must also be done in the street. He has given time, even, to meet public figures in Madrid and have some tapas in Seville.
Rogers arrived in this city last Thursday 14 December to give a conference within the Doctorate program in Legal and Political Sciences at the Pablo de Olavide University, coordinated by Prof.. Francisco Infante. He has been invited by the East Asian Studies Line of the Comlíticos group and by the Master in Communication and Culture of the University of Seville, under the direction of Prof.. Rafael González Galiana, visiting the Faculty of Communication on Friday 15. Professors Jesús San Bernardino and Carolina García Sanz welcomed him to the Degree in Oriental Studies..
With that poise that only those who are capable of looking death in the eyes have, In his interventions, Rogers has illustrated the hard evidence of the report The Darkest Moment: The Crackdown on Human Rights in China, 2013-16, in charge of the Human Rights Commission that assists the current British government and that this former journalist promotes as vice president. “It is no longer just about the persecution of pro-democracy dissidents, lawyers committed to the defense of fundamental rights or especially critical academics. A further step has been taken and practices that we believed were confined to the worst moments of the Cultural Revolution are reissued: kidnappings of people in third countries, confessions under torture on official television, trafficking of harvested organs «live» to political prisoners and the establishment of a system of extrajudicial repression that uses all kinds of illegal means to make people disappear, as Teng Biao explains in The People’s Republic of the Dissappeared, “a collection of direct testimonies about these atrocities”. Liu Xia, the wife of the recently deceased Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, He is one of the best-known victims of this system of repression..
Ben has also denounced the deplorable treatment received during his recent visit to Hong Kong, as it highlights the erosion of the legal framework “A country, two systems: "Although I had not informed the Chinese authorities of my intention to travel, they were aware. I don't know by what means they obtained that information.. “They warned me that I was not a persona grata and that I would not be able to reach my destiny.”. Yet, after consulting several contacts in the former colony, the activist decided to try: Should you carry out your threats, China would offer the world new evidence that it does not even respect its own legality, nor its international commitments, how it actually happened.
When questioned about the reasons for this deterioration, Rogers has no doubts. President Xi Jinping is trying to prevail over his rivals in the bitter power struggle between the different factions of the regime.. She further , is fostering a true cult of his personality, to the point that the last congress of the PCC (Chinese Communist Party) has approved the incorporation of its political doctrine into the constitutional text, which puts Xi almost at the level of Mao. To this we must add that the Asian Giant is currently struggling in a serious contradiction. On the one hand, feels strong and confident as an emerging global power willing to continue conquering the world economically. But, on the other, It has lost its ideological legitimacy and its elites have entered a state of paranoia that leads them to extreme control over discrepancy..
In this scenario –Rogers pointed out at the closing of his visit., “The only hope of survival for the Chinese regime is to achieve the same levels of well-being that have ended up quietly anesthetizing our developed societies.”.
