Hong Kong denies entry to British opposition lawmaker

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LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s foreign minister David Lammy said he was seeking answers from Hong Kong and Chinese authorities on Sunday after an opposition member of parliament, Wera Hobhouse, was denied entry to the Chinese territory and former British colony.

“It is deeply concerning to hear that an MP on a personal trip has been refused entry to Hong Kong,” Lammy said in a statement. “We will urgently raise this with the authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing to demand an explanation.”

Hobhouse, a member of the opposition Liberal Democrat party, said on social media that she was the first British member of parliament to be refused entry to Hong Kong since Beijing regained control of the territory in 1997.

“Authorities gave me no explanation for this cruel and upsetting blow,” she said.

Speaking to Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper, Hobhouse said she flew to Hong Kong on Thursday to visit her newborn grandson and her son, who works in the territory.

Hobhouse has previously criticised China’s ruling Communist Party for restricting civil liberties in Hong Kong, and over human rights abuses in the Chinese regions of Xinjiang and Tibet and its approach to Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Hong Kong’s Security Bureau and immigration authorities and China’s embassy in London had no immediate comment on why Hobhouse was not allowed entry.

Hobhouse is the third British lawmaker to have been denied entry to a foreign country in recent weeks. Israel blocked two members of the governing Labour Party who attempted to visit the West Bank on a fact-finding trip on the grounds they intended to provoke anti-Israel activities, the Israeli embassy in Britain said.

(Reporting by David Milliken; additional reporting by Jessie Pang in Hong Kong; Editing by Bernadette Baum)