Baroness Helena Kennedy QC sanctioned by China

Baroness Helena Kennedy QC

The nine include Tory MPs Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Nusrat Ghani, Tim Loughton, Tom Tugendhat and Neil O’Brien, Lord Alton, lawyer Sir Geoffrey Nice QC and Newcastle University academic Jo Smith Finley.

All of them are now banned from travelling to China – including Hong Kong and Macau – and any property they have in China will be frozen. Chinese citizens and institutions are banned from doing business with them.

A handful of organisations, including Essex Court Chambers, which has acted for the World Uyghur Congress, have also been sanctioned.

The move appears to be in retaliation to sanctions imposed on Chinese officials by the UK government on Monday.

Baroness Kennedy hails from Glasgow but practises as a barrister in London. She is currently leading a working group on the possibility of creating a new offence of misogynistic harassment in Scots law.

Along sir Sir Iain, Ms Ghani and Mr Loughton, she is a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which the Chinese government views as an anti-China alliance.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: “It speaks volumes that, while the UK joins the international community in sanctioning those responsible for human rights abuses, the Chinese government sanctions its critics.

“If Beijing wants to credibly rebut claims of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, it should allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights full access to verify the truth.”