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Ex-British foreign secretary and US senator urge action on Hong Kong visa refusal of Financial Times journalist Victor Mallet
Pressure comes as US report calls for review of city’s human rights conditions before continuing to grant it special trade status
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Both a former British foreign secretary and a US senator urged their governments to take action on Hong Kong’s decision to deny journalist Victor Mallet’s work visa renewal on Wednesday.
Malcolm Rifkind said Britain should make retaining the integrity of the handover settlement a top priority, while Marco Rubio reiterated calls for the US to review Hong Kong’s human rights situation before continuing to grant the city its special economic and trade status.
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Writing to the Financial Times, Rifkind, who served as Britain’s foreign secretary from 1995 to 1997 and handled the final negotiations for the handover of Hong Kong, said safeguarding the rule of law and the city’s basic freedom had been a key priority. He said these efforts had formed the heart of a special trading relationship that Britain, the US and the European Union carried out with Hong Kong.
Rifkind went on to describe the visa ruling as a “bizarre decision” showing “that the integrity of this settlement sits on a knife edge”.
The UK government should make retaining the integrity of the handover settlement a top priority as it is in our national interest
“It exposes a worrying trend: that Hong Kong’s “core values”, including free expression and the rule of law, are under pressure,” he wrote, adding that “‘national security’ increasingly being used to justify disproportionate constrictions on fundamental rights”.
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