Lagatar24 Desk
China’s ambassador to Britain Zheng Zeguang has been barred from Parliament and told he could not enter the building for a talk he was scheduled to give on Wednesday, September 15, 2021.
Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle said Tuesday it was not “appropriate” for the Chinese ambassador, Zheng Zeguang, to enter Parliament because China imposed sanctions against seven British parliamentarians over their criticism of Beijing’s human rights record.
Zheng was due to attend a reception in the House of Commons organized by a cross-party parliamentary group on China.
China imposed sanctions on seven British politicians in March, including senior Conservative lawmakers Iain Duncan Smith and Tom Tugendhat, who have spoken out against China’s treatment of its Uyghur minority in the far-west Xinjiang region.
The sanctioned parliamentarians welcomed the ban, saying allowing Zheng in the Parliament building would have been “an insult.”
The Chinese Embassy in the U.K. condemned the move and said it will harm the interests of both countries.
“The despicable and cowardly action of certain individuals of the U.K. Parliament to obstruct normal exchanges and co-operation between China and the U.K. for personal political gains is against the wishes and harmful to the interests of the peoples of both countries,” the embassy said in a statement.
