UK SLAMS BEIJING OVER OUSTER OF HK OPPOSITION LAWMAKERS

The United Kingdom has slammed China's disqualification of four pro-democracy members of Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo), saying that the country is in breach of a 1984 treaty promising to protect the city's freedoms, the US-run Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported.

"Beijing's imposition of new rules to disqualify elected legislators in Hong Kong constitutes a clear breach of the legally binding Sino-British Joint Declaration," Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a statement. "China has once again broken its promises and undermined Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy." Raab said the UK would stand with its allies to hold Beijing responsible for multiple violations of the UN-registered treaty governing the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to Chinese rule. 

"This is the third time since 1997 that China has breached the legally-binding Joint Declaration," Raab said. The first was with the cross-border arrest of Hong Kong bookseller and UK national Lee Bo, while the second was in June 2020 when Beijing introduced a draconian national security law criminalizing dissent and peaceful criticism of the authorities. "The U.K. will stand up for the people of Hong Kong, and call out violations of their rights and freedoms," Raab said. Raab said the NPC decision was "part of a pattern apparently designed to harass and stifle all voices critical of China's policies." 

A Nov. 11 decision by the standing committee of China's National People's Congress (NPC) resulted in the expulsion of Dennis Kwok, Alvin Yeung, Kwok Ka-ki and Kenneth Leung from LegCo, on grounds that they didn't meet the requirements laid down by the NPC. The lawmakers' ouster prompted 15 pro-democracy lawmakers to hand in their resignations to the authorities in protest on Thursday, as resigning Democratic Party lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting hung a banner outside the LegCo chamber calling Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam "the scourge of Hong Kong's people," and "guilty for a thousand years," in an ironic echo of a phrase used by Chinese officials to describe Hong Kong's last colonial governor, Chris Patten.