China retaliates with sanctions on nine UK citizens spreading “lies and misinformation”
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Alaina
- . March 27, 2021
- . Update: March 27, 2021 2:54 pm
Including five MPs, China has placed sanctions on nine UK citizens for spreading “lies and disinformation” about the country. The group in the UK, sanctioned, is the most vocal critics of China.
The move comes as a retaliation to the measures taken by the UK on Monday over human rights abuses. Amongst the MPs targeted is Sir Iain Duncan Smith with his two peers, an academician and a lawyer. He said the sanctions would be worn by him “as a badge of honour”.
The answer by China follows a similar sort of sanctions imposed on the European Union (EU), which was a part of the coordinated action along with the UK, US, and Canada. China is said to have detained Uighurs at camps in Xinjiang, where there are allegations of torture, labour, and sexual abuse. It has categorically denied the abuse allegations, claiming the camps are for “re-education” used to combat terrorism.
Tory MPs Sir Iain, Tom Tugendhat, Tim Loughton, Neil O’Brien and Nusrat Ghani; the peers’ Baroness Kennedy and Lord Alton; an academic, Jo Smith Finley and a lawyer Sir Geoffrey Nice QC will all be banned from entering the premises of China, Macau, and Hong Kong.
As per the details, their properties in China will be frozen and all Chinese citizens and institutions are prohibited from doing business with them. Former Conservative leader Sir Iain was of the opinion that “It is indeed our foremost duty to call out the human rights abuses by the Chinese government in Hong Kong and their mass genocide of the Uighurs.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman was of the opinion that the UK’s decision to impose sanctions “breaches international law and the basic norms that govern international relations, it also grossly interferes in the internal affairs of China, and severely undermines China-UK ties”.
