As part of China’s retaliation against EU sanctions introduced due to human rights abuses in the Asian country, Katalin Cseh, Momentum MEP and Vice president of the Renew Europe Group, was also presumably banned from the country, the politician announced on Facebook.
On Monday, The European Union approved sanctions against four Chinese officials involved in running internment camps for hundreds of thousands of the Muslim Uyghur minority in the region of Xinjiang.
Beijing quickly responded by blacklisting several EU officials, including MEPs and national MPs.
China also sanctioned the EU’s main foreign policy decision-making body, the Political and Security Committee of the European Council and the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights.
Altough Katalin Cseh’s name was not on the list issued by the Chinese government, since she is a member of the human rights subcommitte it is almost certain that she is also among those restricted from entering China or doing business with them.
In her Facebook post announcing her ban, Katalin Cseh empasized “whether it was the mass human rights abuses against the Uyghurs, the threatening of Taiwan, or the violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong,” she has always “firmly stood up against the repression of the Chinese Communist regime.”
“We won’t stand idly by as the Chinese leadership tramples on the rights of the Uyghur minority! And this ban is nothing more than an acknowledgment of our work, which, as a badge I will wear proudly,” Cseh wrote.
In her post the Momnetum politican also slammed the Orbán government for being the only Member State which voiced its disapproval against the sanctions.
Although Hungary did not veto the EU measures, foreign affairs and trade minister Péter Szijjártó labeled the sanctions “exhibitionist and harmful” which could “poison” EU-China business ties.
Photo by Szilárd Koszticsák/MTI
