View source for 88 000 Hong Kongers Apply For New British Resettlement Visa

Britain has offered more than five million Hong Kongers a pathway to citizenship<br>  <br>Nearly 90,000 Hong Kongers have applied for resettlement in Britain under a new visa scheme offering a pathway to citizenship, London said Tuesday as it issued a report condemning China's crackdown on dissent in the former colony.<br> <br>Britain rolled out the visa scheme in January for more than five million Hong Kongers in response to Beijing's imposition of a sweeping national security law last year.<br> <br>The law has been used to snuff out dissent in a crackdown that Britain has labelled a breach of Beijing's promise to maintain Hong Kong's freedoms and autonomy.<br> <br>"By the end of September, 88,000 people had applied for visas under this scheme. On behalf of the government, I welcome them warmly to the UK," British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss wrote in a report on Hong Kong published every six months.<br> <br>Britain previously predicted about 154,000 Hong Kongers would arrive in the first year, and as many as 322,000 over five years.<br> <br>Applicants must hold a British National (Overseas) passport, which are available to Hong Kongers born before the city's return to Chinese rule in 1997, along with their dependants.<br> <br>China has condemned Britain's resettlement offer and announced it would no longer recognise BN(O) passports as a legitimate document.<br> <br>Relations between Britain and China have soured over Beijing's response to massive democracy protests that swept Hong Kong two years ago as well as [http://www.estateguideblog.com/?s=alleged%20human alleged human] rights abuses in China's far-western region of Xinjiang.<br> <br>Tuesday's report said China was "in a state of ongoing non-compliance with its international obligations" on Hong Kong.<br> <br>The national security law had been used against "all opposition, free press and civil society", it added.<br> <br>"Just over a year since the imposition of the National Security [https://www.wiklundkurucuk.com/ law firm turkey], the damage that this far-reaching law is doing to the way of life of the people of Hong Kong is clear," the report said.<br> <br>British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has faced pressure to extend the visa scheme to cover younger Hong Kongers who do not qualify for a BN(O) passport.<br> <br>Many of the demonstrators who took to the streets in 2019 were from the city's younger generation.<br> <br>A poll earlier this year by the University of Oxford's Migration Observatory found one-third of Hong Kongers with a BN(O) passport were considering moving to Britain.<br><br><br>adverts.addToArray("pos":"inread_player")Advertisement