Chinese ambassador to UK summoned over activist barred from Hong Kong, senior British official says
Foreign office minister Mark Field says he will write to Chief Executive Carrie Lam about UK national Benedict Rogers being refused entry to city
The Chinese ambassador to the UK was summoned by the British Foreign Office after human rights activist Benedict Rogers was refused entry to Hong Kong last week, a senior official revealed on Tuesday.
“[The] Foreign Office director general for economic and global issues summoned the Chinese ambassador on this issue over the past few days.”
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The British official was speaking after Fiona Bruce, an MP and chair of the UK Conservative Party’s Human Rights Commission, asked about the matter in the House of Commons on Tuesday.
“What action is the Foreign Office taking [over] the apparent continuing erosion of the ‘one country, two systems’ principle in Hong Kong?” Bruce asked.
The first item was a reference to five booksellers who disappeared in Hong Kong in 2015 and later emerged in the custody of mainland authorities.
Rogers, deputy chairman of the same commission, was refused entry to the city upon arriving at Hong Kong International Airport on October 11. He was then put on a plane to Thailand, where he had flown from, and onwards to London.
Rogers said Chinese officials in London had raised concerns before his trip that he might visit Wong, Law and Chow in prison. But Rogers said he had no plans to visit the trio during his trip, which was a purely private one.
Beijing runs Hong Kong’s foreign affairs, says Carrie Lam, after British politician barred from city
“One country, two systems” is the governing formula under which Beijing has run Hong Kong since the city was handed from British to Chinese rule in 1997. Under it, the city gets certain freedoms not enjoyed by people on the mainland.
Speaking on the matter last week, Lam, the city’s leader, did not say why Rogers was denied entry, adding that individual immigration cases should not be discussed in public. But she said governments everywhere had discretion over who was allowed in and who was not.
She also said that under the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the central government is responsible for the city’s foreign affairs.
China’s foreign ministry said Rogers knew “well enough” of his intentions to meddle in the rule of law and internal affairs of Hong Kong.