UK urged to provide 'exit options' for HongKongers

Protesters urged the UK to either give Hong Kong people full British citizenship, or help them seek right of abode in Commonwealth countries. Photo: RTHK

Many people urged the UK to quickly pass a Magnitsky law, to punish people deemed to have committed human rights abuses. Photo: RTHK

Demonstrators talk to RTHK's Joanne Wong

Hundreds of people formed a human chain outside the British Consulate in Admiralty on Wednesday night in a show of support for calls by more than 100 British MPs for Commonwealth nations to consider granting citizenship to Hong Kong people.



A long row of mostly-masked people, many waving Union Jack and colonial Hong Kong flags, stretched along Justice Drive and Supreme Court Road ahead of a scheduled debate on the issue in the House of Lords on Thursday.



Some of the participants waved their lit cellphone lights as they sang “God Save the Queen” and waved signs saying “SOS”.



Many said the UK should take a more active role in ensuring that the Sino-British Joint Declaration – which guarantees rights and freedoms in Hong Kong under One Country, Two Systems – is adhered to.



“The UK has a responsibility to its former colony, so now that the Joint Declaration is clearly violated, they should do something about it”, one woman said. “They can’t just abandon us because of renminbi.”



She added that people here need an exit strategy, saying while she doesn’t want to leave her home, “If things get worse and [Hong Kong] turns into Xinjiang, then I can’t not leave.”



Some participants urged the UK to quickly implement a Magnitsky law to allow it to freeze assets of people deemed responsible for human rights abuses – including those in Hong Kong.



One British national who joined the crowd outside the consulate with his wife, said he agrees that Hong Kong people should be give right of abode in the UK.



“There’s a lot of people who are stuck here and they have literally nowhere to go”, he said. “And I think that we should in the light of the political climate and the threats to our future… it’s important that we fulfill our obligations of allowing them to have a proper future of moving to the UK so that they’re not stuck in a cycle of political turmoil and oppression under the increasing Chinese influence on Hong Kong”, he added.