Iain Duncan Smith is among the MPs who face sanctions
(Picture: PA Media)China has imposed sanctions on nine UK citizens, including five MPs, for spreading "lies and disinformation,” the country has said.
It comes after the UK joined the EU and others in sanctioning Chinese officials accused of human rights abuses against the Uighur Muslim minority group in the Xinjiang region.
Former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith is among the MPs targeted by China, along with two peers, a lawyer and an academic.
China's sanctions are the latest move in an increasingly bitter row over Xinjiang.
Beijing is accused of detaining more than one million members of Uyghur and other Muslim minority groups, engaging in forced labour and imposing coercive birth control measures.
The nine people facing sanctions are Tory MPs Sir Iain, Tom Tugendhat, Neil O'Brien, Tim Loughton, and Nusrat Ghani; the peers Lord Alton and Baroness Kennedy; a lawyer, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, and an academic, Jo Smith Finley.
They will all be banned from entering China, Hong Kong and Macao, their property in China will be frozen and Chinese citizens and institutions will be prohibited from doing business with them.
