Statement: Hong Kong Watch and Baroness Bennett call for urgent intervention to end siege of Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University and secure safe passage and humanitarian assistance for those remaining

Hong Kong Watch and Baroness Bennett today call on Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam to order the Hong Kong Police Force to retreat from Polytechnic University, in order to end the eight-day siege. Hong Kong Watch has also written to the governments of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Germany and others in the international community to use their diplomatic influence to secure safe passage for the remaining protesters and ensure they receive emergency medical attention.

Hong Kong Watch has received many desperate appeals for help to save the lives of the remaining protesters.

In addition, Hong Kong Watch notes with alarm the arrests of first-aiders as well as journalists in the first few days of the siege. On 21 November a senior Hong Kong surgeon Darren Mann published an analysis of the crisis in the international medical journal The Lancet, in which he described the arrest of volunteer medical workers as an act that is “almost unheard of in civilized countries and is incompatible with the compact of humanitarianism”. He notes that the Red Cross had decided that the situation “amounted to a humanitarian crisis and self-initiated an intervention.”

We urge the international community and the relevant authorities in Hong Kong to end this crisis now and prevent it deteriorating further, but to do so in a way that protects the safe passage of those still trapped inside the university and ensures that they receive emergency medical care.

Baroness Bennett, recently elected Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong, says:

“The huge turn-out for the elections in Hong Kong, demonstrates the desire for self-determination, for democratic control, there. But that mustn’t distract from the fact that prominent pro-democracy candidate Joshua Wong was barred from standing. Nor must it distract from the fact that a group of young democracy protestors have been isolated inside PolyUni now for eight days. They must be terrified and desperately hungry. I call on Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to ensure that the Hong Kong authorities get the message that the UK expects Carrie Lam to personally arrange for them to be allowed to leave safely. The world is watching."