Beijing has slammed “irresponsible remarks” by Britain after a UK report said Hong Kong’s national security law had further diminished the openness that underpinned the city’s success.
In the United Kingdom’s latest six-month monitoring report on Hong Kong, released on Thursday, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said he was “deeply concerned and disturbed” by the continued imprisonment of former media boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, who was jailed for 20 years over national security offences.
“We continue to call for his immediate release and will raise his case consistently as part of our frank and constructive engagement with the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities,” he said.
In the report’s foreword, Miliband said Lai’s case, alongside recent developments in the trial of former leaders of the now-disbanded alliance behind the city’s annual Tiananmen Square vigil and activist Joshua Wong Chi-fung, had reinforced concerns about the “increasingly broad application” of national security legislation.