- The incident happened at a protest outside the consulate on Sunday
- The British Foreign Secretary said this was unacceptable
- Beijing disputes the protesters’ accounts
- The MP says the diplomats should be expelled
LONDON, Oct 19 (Reuters) – A man protesting outside a Chinese consulate in Britain said he was dragged into the grounds by masked men, kicked and punched in an attack that British Foreign Secretary James Cleverley described as “unacceptable” on Wednesday.
China has disputed the account of events during a demonstration against Chinese President Xi Jinping outside the consulate in Manchester, northern England, on Sunday, saying protesters stormed it.
It is the latest diplomatic spat between Britain and China, whose relations have soured in recent years.
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Footage on social media showed a man wearing a black hat and ponytail being led through a gate into the consulate building, where he was attacked by five men as he lay on the ground.
Bob Chan, who is in his 30s and originally from Hong Kong, said the attack began when masked men came out of the consulate to take away banners from peaceful protesters.
“I was then dragged into the consulate grounds. I was holding on to the gate where I was kicked and punched,” he told reporters. “I couldn’t last long and finally they dragged me to the consulate grounds.
He said the attack only stopped when a police officer intervened to free him. He was left with bruises on his eye, head, neck and entire back, he told reporters.
“I am shocked and hurt by this unprovoked attack,” he said, adding that he was concerned for his safety and the safety of his family.
Britain summoned China’s chargé d’affaires in London on Tuesday to explain what happened, with Cleverley saying the protest, which involved 30 to 40 people, including Hong Kong nationals now residing in Britain, was peaceful and legal.
“They were on British soil and it is absolutely unacceptable for this kind of behaviour,” Cleverley told the media.
Beijing said it had lodged complaints with Britain “about the incident of malicious harassment”.
“GOD KILLED CPC”
Zheng Siyuan, China’s consul general, wrote to police to say he was disappointed with the way they handled the protest, which featured images of Xi with a noose around his neck and slogans written in Chinese that read “God Kill the CCP (Communist Party of China).
“At one point, the consulate grounds were stormed by a group of protesters and consular staff members had to physically fend off unauthorized entry and subsequent attacks,” he wrote in a letter released to the media.
He said a protester grabbed a member of staff during a scuffle and refused to let him go. Colleagues had pulled them inside and the attacker “proceeded to assault our member of staff and so our staff were forced to untie his arms”.
The protest was held at the start of China’s ruling Communist Party’s twice-a-decade congress in Beijing, where Xi is expected to win a third term as leader.
Police said they were investigating and appealed for more video of the incident, saying no arrests had yet been made.
Cleverley said Britain would decide “what else we need to do” once police have completed their investigation.
Some MPs said the diplomats involved should be expelled immediately.
Iain Duncan Smith, former leader of the ruling Conservative Party, said the government should have told the ambassador it was sending a number of people home.
He said the videos showed the consul general’s claims were “absolute nonsense”. Duncan Smith was among the lawmakers and other Britons sanctioned by China last year for spreading “lies” about alleged human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region.
Relations between Britain and China have been increasingly strained since Beijing introduced a national security law in Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997 with the promise that its freedoms would be protected.
Britain has been highly critical of the law, which it says has been used to stifle dissent, while Beijing has accused London of meddling and creating trouble.
Points of contention include a British program that allows almost three million people in Hong Kong to apply for visas.
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Additional reporting by Farooq Suleiman, Muvia M and William James in London; Liz Lee and Eduardo Baptista in Beijing; Edited by Kate Holton, Nick McPhee, William McLean, Philippa Fletcher
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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