{"id":76304,"date":"2026-02-09T17:04:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T08:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/09\/uk-expands-hong-kong-visa-scheme-in-wake-of-jimmy-lai-prison-sentence"},"modified":"2026-02-09T17:04:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T08:04:32","slug":"uk-expands-hong-kong-visa-scheme-in-wake-of-jimmy-lais-prison-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76304","title":{"rendered":"UK expands Hong Kong visa scheme in wake of Jimmy Lai\u2019s prison sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive: Home Office ruling means thousands more Hongkongers will be eligible to come to the UK over next five years<\/p>\n<p>Ministers have opened up visas to thousands more people from Hong Kong in the wake of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/09\/jimmy-lai-sentencing-china-hong-kong-pro-democracy-businessman\">20-year prison sentence<\/a> handed down to the pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai.<\/p>\n<p>Adult children of British national (overseas) status holders who were under 18 at the time of Hong Kong\u2019s 1997 handover to China will be eligible to apply for the route independently of their parents, a Home Office spokesperson told the Guardian on Monday.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/09\/uk-expands-hong-kong-visa-scheme-in-wake-of-jimmy-lai-prison-sentence\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive: Home Office ruling means thousands more Hongkongers will be eligible to come to the UK over next five yearsMinisters have opened up visas to thousands more people from Hong Kong in the wake of the 20-year prison sentence handed down to the p&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3312,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,48,717,3034,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-hong-kong","category-immigration-and-asylum","category-jimmy-lai","category-uk-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3312"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76305,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76304\/revisions\/76305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}