Foreign critics of HK’s handling of work visas show double standard

Yang Sheng says UK and US have both refused entry to foreign journalists, and have no room to judge

Adecision by the Immigration Department of the special administrative region government not to renew the work visa of a foreign correspondent, an act committed from time to time by all jurisdictions in the interest of national security, has unexpectedly triggered disproportionate response from some quarters. The opposition, which is trying desperately to collect ammunition for the Legislative Council by-election to be held next month, has wasted no time in making use of what they wrongly think is a good opportunity to embarrass the government by blowing up the visa rejection case of Victor Mallet, Asia news editor of Financial Times.

The barrage of criticisms have also come from outside. The latest party to have jumped on this bandwagon is the British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who has called the visa rejection “politically motivated” and urged the SAR government to reconsider its decision.

If all visa decisions by immigration authorities around the globe are to be answered, the British should be among the first to do so. When they were ruling Hong Kong before 1997, they were by no means hospitable to visiting journalists. More elderly residents might remember how Chang Yu-hua, a veteran Taiwan political commentator, was thrown out of Hong Kong in 1991. He visited the city as a reporter to cover the drafting of the Basic Law. When he spoke publicly, making references to what the British had done in the past that had led to chaos in many parts of the world and pointing out the fact they had never given Hong Kong residents any democracy, the then British colonial government, embarrassed and angered, ordered him to leave within 48 hours. Chang disclosed years later that all journalists entering Hong Kong at that time had to sign a declaration pledging not to conduct any political activities. He was kicked out even though he was merely stating the facts.

Visa rejection also happens in the United Kingdom itself. A very recent case was the British immigration authority’s refusal to grant Lauren Southern, a Canadian journalist, an entry visa earlier this year. It turns out that she was a far-right activist and was accused of having distributed racist materials before. So the British government does refuse visa applications of foreign journalists out of concern for national security or other considerations they deem significant.

Meanwhile the US consulate general Hong Kong and Macao has also queried Mallet’s case. So does the US government never refuse foreign journalists’ application for visa? The answer is certainly no. As a matter of fact, examples showing unfair treatment of foreign journalists by the US government abound.

In December 2016, award-winning Canadian photojournalist Ed Ou was barred from entry to the US when he admitted to US border officials that he was travelling to North Dakota to cover some protests for the Canadian Broadcasting Company. He was interrogated for six hours and his cellphone’s sim cards were taken away and contents of his reporter’s notebook and personal diary copied.

Many other journalists’ bids to enter the US have been rejected for their nationality. In January 2016, a BBC reporter, Rana Rahimpour, was denied permission to board a flight at Heathrow Airport to go to New York City to attend the wedding ceremony of a family member. The reason she was not allowed to enter the country was that she was born in Iran and possessed both British and Iranian nationality.

In October 2017, another journalist, Afrah Nasser, was not allowed to enter the US to receive the 2017 International Press Freedom award. The US authorities refused to reveal the reason of the rejection, but it is believed it was because she, though living in exile in Sweden, came originally from Yemen, which was and is not in good relations with the US. Currently Yemen is one of the countries on President Donald Trump’s travel ban list.

So, what would one describe those cases if not “politically motivated”?

The SAR government has not revealed the reason for Mallet’s being denied a work visa renewal, but Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has reassured the public that the decision has been made according to law. We can trust her on that as Hong Kong has always been a rule-of-law society.

However, even if the decision was related to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club’s hosting of the talk by separatist Andy Chan Ho-tin, as the opposition has suggested, is it any different from the examples above? From them, we can see the UK and US, and any other government for that matter, respond seriously when it comes to national security. If “politically motivated” means upholding national security and territorial integrity, so be it.