Press release on Oct 1st Petition "Not My National Day"
For immediate release
Not My National Day - 3rd Petition in British Consulate-General Hong Kong on 1 October
On the 70th anniversary of China establishment, the claws of totalitarian regime are increasingly harming the personal safety of British Nationals in Hong Kong. In denial of the Chinese National Day, a group of BNO passport holders and supporters will hold a peaceful protest outside the British Consulate in Admiralty in the afternoon of October 1, calling on the UK government to act immediate actions on this humanitarian crisis.
The group also calls on the British government to act in alignment to Vienna Convention on Law of Treaties and stop restricting our freedom of movement into the country as nationals. They also highlight the importance of the UK not to let political and economical concerns override the assistance on humanitarian crisis in Hong Kong.
Being a signatory of a legally-binding treaty, the British government has the legal obligation to take action in recognising the breach of said treaty by another signatory according to the internationally held Vienna Convention. The protesters urge the British regime to handle such breach by abiding to the widely recognised Vienna Convention Law of Treaties.
Carrie Lam, after the Urgent Question on Hong Kong Held on 26 September, responded to Dominic Raab that “Hong Kong’s enjoyment of autonomy is inconsistent with the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ model”. Britain, on the one hand, still takes the wishful stance of respecting Chinese regime and expecting its upholding of Sino-British Joint Declaration, hence refusing to take concrete action to ensure the safety of British Nationals in Hong Kong.
Carrie Lam has launched a community dialogue session which Dominic Raab gave so much nod in the Urgent Question response. However, Lam meanwhile told journalists that it is “remarkable” that we do not have any deaths during months of protests. The kindness unleashed from this communist puppet is but a hypocritical gesture, in a hope to fake foreign policymakers who have insufficient knowledge about Chinese dictatorship.
The accelerating level of brutality by Hong Kong police shows Carrie Lam does not have the sincerity of ensuring the city’s human rights. This slippery tactic is an alarm of how rapidly the city is falling. The police has extended further unreasonable arrests and violence onto medical personnel, calling protesters as “yellow object” and exerted outrageous violence of war crime level onto detainees in San Uk Ling Holding Centre. These are all real, bloodied evidence to the imminent danger British Nationals and Hong Kong people face.
Exactly in the same light of such danger, Catherine West MP iterated in the Urgent Question that “Basic democratic freedoms of the press, the right to assemble and the right to protest are enshrined in the Sino-British joint declaration, an internationally recognised treaty to which we are of course a signatory”.
However, the UK government is still reluctant to put humanitarian crisis on top of political concerns, hence enabling more possibility to human rights jeopardy. As Raab clarifies on 26 September: “The BNO status, which did not entitle the holders of those passports to a right of permanent residence in the UK, was part of the delicate balance and negotiations that were conducted and then concluded at the time of the joint declaration. We are seeking not to change the status of any one part of that package, but rather to press all sides, including the Chinese, to respect the delicate balance reflected in that package”.
The group of British Nationals also express gratitude to the 23 MPs who pressed the British government to respond about the issue of BN(O). The petitioners urge the Members of the House to review whether the Sino-Joint British Declaration is still applicable to Hong Kong.
In conclusion, they call on the Members of the House to support the related parliamentary debate initiated by Steve Double MP.
For more information, please contact britonsinhk@gmail.com