LONDON, July 27 (Reuters) – Britain is looking again at an immigration order that a former Hong Kong political opposition leader must leave after a week’s visit, his lawyer said, after the order appeared at odds with UK policy on its former colony.
Wu Chi-Wai, a former leader of the now-defunct Democratic Party, had come to Britain last week to be reunited with his wife and son, after he was released in June from jail where he had been serving a sentence under China’s national security law.
Since the sweeping national security law was imposed on the city in 2020, the British government has made it easier for many Hong Kong residents to resettle by easing the residency requirements for the British National (Overseas) passport.
Wu’s lawyer said he had been stopped when he arrived at Heathrow Airport and told he could only stay for a week. His passport was also seized.
But lawyer Paul Harris said Wu was told on Monday that Border Force officials were now “revisiting the case”.
Britain’s interior ministry declined to comment on individual cases, beyond saying it remains fully committed to members of the Hong Kong community in Britain.
Wu’s treatment has sparked alarm among members of Hong Kong’s community in Britain.
Hong Kong’s history as a British colony means that many families have close ties to relatives in Britain who settled in the decades before 1997, when control of Hong Kong switched from Britain to China.
In February, the British government estimated that the easing of passport rules meant 170,000 Hong Kongers had moved since 2021, with a further 26,000 expected in five years under further easing.
(Reporting by Kate Holton in London and Greg Torode in Hong Kong; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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