The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office recently released the “Half Yearly Report on Hong Kong”, saying that China has twice in five months seriously violated the “Sino-British Joint Declaration”, the British Parliament has once again set off waves of sanctions against Hong Kong officials. During the House of Commons meeting on the 24th, cross-party legislators have called on the government to implement the Magnitsky Sanctions Act as soon as possible against Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and other officials, and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab (Raab) responded that the sanctions need to be supported by evidence and are still under review and assessment.
Benedict Rogers, Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party Human Rights Committee, pointed out in an interview with this station on the 25th that the voices calling for sanctions within the Parliament are getting stronger and stronger every day, especially from the debate on human rights issues in China and Hong Kong, and that the majority of members of Parliament have called for sanctions.
In July of this year, the British government announced the first round of Magnitsky Act sanctions against 49 individuals or organizations for serious human rights violations. Sanctions include bans on entry into the U.K., prohibitions on transferring funds through U.K. financial institutions, benefiting from U.K. economic activity, and freezing personal assets. However, no Chinese were on the first round of the list, and the filibuster did not rule out adding Mrs. Lam to the second round of sanctions, according to a congressional questioning at the time.
In the House of Commons on the 24th, Conservative MP Tom Randall asked the filibuster, “If the current sanctions regime fails to target those responsible for what is happening in Hong Kong, should the government take further steps to target those in power in Hong Kong who are really guilty? Labor Party MP Geraint Davies named Mrs. Lam directly, “The Chinese government has already violated the Sino-British Joint Declaration twice in the past six months, when are we going to impose Magnitsky sanctions on Mrs. Lam? Also, what restrictions do we impose on the flow of capital from London into China via Hong Kong?”
Raab responded by saying only, “Sanctions or not, they have to be backed up by evidence. We are now in the process of reviewing and evaluating it with other international partners.”
It is difficult to know from Raab’s response what obstacles the British government is facing or what the final decision process is, but the U.S., an important ally of the U.K., has already sanctioned officials such as Carrie Lam, which gives the U.K. a strong push,” said Rogers. This is true for all parties. Recent debates on Hong Kong and China have shown that the call for sanctions is overwhelming.”
Rogers added that he has just written a report on human rights in China for the Conservative Human Rights Committee, which will be published soon and will add a strong voice to the call for sanctions.
In addition, a few days ago, the filibuster said that will consider stop sending British judges to serve as non-permanent judges of the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong, Rogers called on the British government and Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries that send foreign judges to discuss, then once the decision at the appropriate time to withdraw the judges, should be all foreign judges at the same time the collective withdrawal, in order to send a strong message to the outside world.
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