Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Hong Kong‘s outspoken Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen was allowed to leave the southern Chinese city to attend Pope Francis’ funeral in Vatican City.

“Cardinal Zen, a 93-year-old retired bishop, left Hong Kong on Wednesday (April 23, 2025) night after applying at a court to get back his passport,” his secretary told The Associated Press in a text message on Thursday (April 24, 2025.)

Authorities confiscated his passport after his controversial arrest under a Beijing-imposed national security law in 2022.

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Cardinal Zen is among the critics in recent years who have said the Vatican’s agreement with Chinese authorities on the appointment of bishops betrays pro-Vatican Chinese Catholics.

He has also criticised Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, the official charged with negotiations with Beijing, as a “man of little faith.” Mr. Parolin is considered one of the main contenders to be the next Pope, given his prominence in the Catholic hierarchy.

On Tuesday (April 22, 2025), media reports said Cardinal Zen had issued a critique of the Vatican, questioning why pre-conclave meetings started as early as Tuesday (April 22, 2025). The AP could not independently verify the reports, but Cardinal Zen reposted the reporters’ posts about his statement on his X account.

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His secretary said Cardinal Zen would return to Hong Kong after the late Pope’s funeral, which is scheduled for Saturday (April 26, 2025). But she was unsure about his exact return date.

It was not the first time he had to go through the city’s court to leave Hong Kong. In 2023, he went through similar procedures to pay his respects to the late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

Cardinal Zen was first arrested in 2022 on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces under the security law. His arrest sent shockwaves through the Catholic community at that time.

While Cardinal Zen has not yet faced national security-related charges, he and five others were fined in 2022 after being found guilty of failing to register a now-defunct fund that aimed to help people arrested in widespread 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. A hearing on his appeal against the conviction is scheduled for December.

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Separately, Hong Kong Cardinal Stephen Chow will travel to the Vatican for the conclave, the city’s Catholic Social Communications Office said on Thursday (April 24, 2025.)

In 2023, a Beijing bishop who was installed by China’s state-controlled Catholic church as an archbishop visited Hong Kong at the invitation of Cardinal Chow. It was the first-ever official visit by a Beijing bishop to the city.

Experts at that time said Cardinal Chow’s invitation was a symbolic gesture that could strengthen the fragile ties between China and the Vatican.

Beijing and the Vatican severed diplomatic ties following the Chinese Communist Party’s rise to power and the expulsion of foreign priests. Since the break in ties, Catholics in China have been divided between those who belong to an official, state-sanctioned church and those in an underground church loyal to the Pope.

The Vatican recognises members of both as Catholics but claims the exclusive right to choose bishops.

The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) has sharply condemned what it calls a “shameful and deliberate erasure” by major Western media outlets in the aftermath of the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir, where 26 Hindu tourists were executed in cold blood by terrorists affiliated with The Resistance Front—a Lashkar-e-Taiba proxy backed by Pakistan.
“Let’s get this straight,” said Suhag Shukla, Executive Director of the Hindu American Foundation, in a scathing rebuke of international media coverage following the April 22, 2025, terror attack in Pahalgam. “Terrorists from the Resistance Front, a Lashkar-e-Taiba offshoot, took credit for storming a meadow in Pahalgam and murdering at least 26 tourists, seeking out Hindus with chilling precision, in the worst civilian massacre in Kashmir since 2008.”
According to Shukla, the headlines should have written themselves: Hindus massacred in Kashmir by Islamists in a terror attack claimed by a Pakistan-backed group. But instead, Western media outlets like The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, BBC, Reuters, and AP delivered “another masterclass in whitewashing, gaslighting, false equivalencies, and revisionist history.”
“Across the board, you’ll see patronising sneer quotes around ‘terror attack’ and sanitised references to the killers as militants,” she said. “Some even have the gall to call them rebels. For the record: a rebel fights authority, a militant targets the state, and a terrorist deliberately targets and kills civilians to spread fear for ideological or religious aims.”
Shukla citing survivor accounts to highlight the ideological nature of the killings. “Terrorists demanded victims identify their religion—forcing them to show IDs or recite the Kalma—and murdered them if they were Hindu. They deliberately spared their wives and children to report the message of hate.”
What especially enraged Shukla was the BBC’s description of the victims as “non-Muslims.” “The intent here is as clear as it is old: target, murder, and terrorise Hindus for an ideological and religious war. Please spare us the neutral terms and erasure.”
For Shukla, the Pahalgam massacre fits into a broader pattern of anti-Hindu violence in Kashmir—one that media outlets routinely downplay or ignore. “Attacks on Hindus in Kashmir by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists are neither rare nor random,” she said, referencing the ethnic cleansing of over 350,000 Kashmiri Pandits in the late ’80s and ’90s and the deaths of Hindu pilgrims at sites like Amarnath and Vaishno Devi since 2000.
Shukla also pointed out the legal discrimination Kashmiri Hindus faced before Article 370 was revoked in 2019. “Before then, indigenous Hindu Pandits—already ethnically cleansed—were legally barred from reclaiming property. Kashmiri women couldn’t pass property to their children if they married outsiders. Indians from outside the region couldn’t settle there. And yet AP and Reuters describe those seeking to return as ‘outsiders’? Would they call a Californian moving to Pennsylvania an immigrant?”
Citing the operational ties between Lashkar-e-Taiba and The Resistance Front, she reminded audiences that this was not rogue violence. “Pakistan’s intelligence agency bankrolls, trains and directs them. TRF’s Falcon Squad is trained in L.E.T. camps in Pakistan. Their propaganda machine runs on L.E.T. networks—all to push Islamabad’s anti-Indian, anti-Hindu agenda.”
Shukla pointed out in a final indictment, “Legacy media’s whitewashing and spin don’t just insult the victims. It enables the very forces behind these atrocities. If you can’t call out terror for what it is, maybe you shouldn’t be reporting on it at all.”
Global Reactions
International condemnation poured in after the April 22, 2025, massacre in Pahalgam, where 26 Hindu tourists were executed by terrorists from The Resistance Front. Leaders across the globe strongly denounced the attack, with many expressing solidarity with India and the victims’ families.
US President Donald Trump called the incident “an act of savage hatred” and declared, “The United States stands strong with India against terrorism. Prime Minister Modi, and the people of India, have our full support and deepest sympathies.”
US Vice President JD Vance, who was in India at the time of the attack, issued a somber statement describing the massacre as “an unspeakable atrocity.” He added that the terrorists’ deliberate targeting of Hindus was “a reminder that religious persecution remains one of the gravest threats to global peace.”
From Capitol Hill, members of the Congressional Hindu Caucus condemned both the attack and the lack of clarity in international media reporting. Representative Tulsi Kapoor stated, “This isn’t just a terror attack—it’s an anti-Hindu hate crime. The world must call it by its name.”
The House Foreign Affairs Committee Majority took direct aim at Western media coverage, particularly The New York Times, saying: “Hey, @nytimes, we fixed it for you. This was a TERRORIST ATTACK, plain and simple. Whether it’s India or Israel, when it comes to TERRORISM, the NYT is removed from reality.”
In an unexpected move, even the Taliban condemned the killings. A spokesperson called the attack on civilians “un-Islamic” and said that deliberately targeting innocent tourists based on religion was “not permissible under any circumstance.”
Around the world, leaders echoed similar sentiments. French President Emmanuel Macron labelled it a “heinous act of terror.” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the killings as “an attack on humanity.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called it a “cowardly act,” while Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said, “Terrorism that targets faith has no place in our world.”
Leaders from China, Australia, Nepal, and the European Union also issued statements condemning the massacre, with many affirming their commitment to counter-terrorism cooperation with India.
India’s Response
In India, the attack has triggered both national mourning and geopolitical consequences. Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemned the massacre as “a crime against humanity” and vowed a “strong and measured response.”
The Ministry of External Affairs summoned Pakistan’s envoy and suspended cooperation under the Indus Waters Treaty—India’s most significant diplomatic weapon against Islamabad short of war. Home Minister Amit Shah chaired an emergency security review and pledged to intensify counter-terror operations in Kashmir.
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A Trail of Horror: Eyewitness Accounts
The attack in the picturesque meadow of Baisaran, 5km from Pahalgam, has become one of the bloodiest civilian massacres in Jammu & Kashmir in over a decade. Survivor testimonies reveal a grim pattern: names, religious symbols, and even dietary choices became markers for death.
Florida-based techie Bitan Adhikary was gunned down in front of his family when he couldn’t “prove” he was Muslim. His widow, Sohini Adhikary, said their vacation turned into a nightmare of gunfire and screams.
Another victim, Bengaluru techie Bharath Bhushan, was executed after simply stating his name. “My name is Bharath,” he told the attackers. That was enough.
Assam professor Debasish Bhattacharya, whose academic fluency in Islamic scripture saved his life, recalled: “Overwhelmed by fear, I began chanting the kalma. After a few moments, the gunman lowered his weapon and we escaped through the forest.”
In other cases, sheer chance played saviour. A Kerala family delayed their trip due to a salty lunch and missed the ambush entirely. Landslides, horse delays, and missed flights spared dozens of others. One couple, newly married and denied a Swiss visa, chose Kashmir for their honeymoon—only for Himanshi to return alone, dazed and bloodied beside the corpse of her husband Lt Vinay Narwal.