First European Citizen Jailed under HK Security Law, ran a BBC headline last week. The opening line of the article reads: “A Portuguese man has become the first European citizen jailed under the China-imposed National Security Law in Hong Kong, a law widely criticized by rights groups.”

If you looked at the headline and then the lead paragraph of the article, you would assume that the city has effectively jailed a Western person, not from Hong Kong, on national security charges, and therefore this is a demonstration of how “oppressive” the situation really is in the city. In conveying that message, the agenda at hand is to push the narrative that Hong Kong is not a safe place for Westerners to travel to or do business anymore, and that those doing so are at risk because of the National Security Law for Hong Kong (NSL).

It is not until you read the article deeper and look at the details that you realize just how misleading these opening statements are intended to be, on the presumption of course that most people won’t bother.

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If we go further, we learn that the individual in question, Wong Kin-chung, is a Portuguese passport holder who also holds Hong Kong permanent residency. Even though he is a Hong Kong permanent resident who has lived outside the city, the article deliberately portrays him as a European who has fallen victim to the NSL.

The UK moreover reserves for itself a wide range of anti-terror, subversion and foreign interference laws that it is now trying to deny to Hong Kong

The article further insinuates that the subject of his arrest concerned “social media posts”, again deliberately framed to depict the law as arbitrary and unreasonable, before it acknowledges that the real reason behind his prosecution is because he chaired a group known as the “Hong Kong Independence Party”, called for the creation of an independent Hong Kong army and for American and British troops to invade Hong Kong. This is what led to him to be found guilty of secessionism under the NSL.

The BBC piece further states that he was denied bail. Again, this is framed as oppressive, omitting the correct legal terminology for this decision as “remanded in custody”, which is a standard procedure under British law for any serious case, especially involving national security or for that matter when the suspect is deemed a flight risk. This is further ignored by the BBC which proceeds to link to an article titled Denial of Bail is Silencing Hong Kong’s Democrats. This article goes even further to supersede the BBC’s so-called impartiality by stating that critics say the denial of bail is “designed to break the will of the accused”. Well, one must ask if the United Kingdom grants bail to terror suspects or high-profile political prisoners like the whistle-blower Julian Assange? If not, why not?

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The answer is because the BBC is not covering the subject of Hong Kong in good faith but is continuing to push a narrative premised on the UK Foreign Office agenda, which is what the BBC World Service does on a global scale, especially to those deemed to be in a former “British sphere of influence”. Its overriding goal is to continue to interfere in Hong Kong affairs, undermine the national security laws and promote dissent. The result is that its reporting is, as we see with the Wong Kin-chung article, deliberately exaggerated for dramatic effect. To that end, it has frequently depicted life in the city negatively, portraying it in dystopian terms while framing it as a place that is unworthy to live in, do business or visit.

The ultimate irony of this, as has been pointed out multiple times, is that the UK would not tolerate an insurrection on a par with what Hong Kong experienced in 2019-20. It is very easy to posture about democracy and human rights, but the reality is that any UK movement that pursues the same scale of violence, disorder and destruction as we saw in Hong Kong would be met with a heavy-handed response by British police; those involved would be prosecuted and jailed, and moreover they would be duly demonized by the right-wing Conservative press. The UK moreover reserves for itself a wide range of anti-terror, subversion and foreign interference laws that it is now trying to deny to Hong Kong.

The author is a British political and international-relations analyst.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.