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nouncement on Tuesday, and a simultaneous announcement is awaited in Hong Kong. The move follows a campaign by non-Chinese ethnic minorities who feared they could be rendered stateless when Hong Kong returns to Chinese sovereignty. Beijing has refused to give them Chinese citizenship. Hong Kong is to handed back to China on July the 1st this year after 150 years of British rule. For years Indian and Pakistani citizens of Hong Kong have been pressing for full British passports. U-K citizenship was offered to fifty thousand heads of households deemed to have a close linkage with Britain. But up to eight thousand ethnic minority members who did not qualify faced the prospect of being rendered "stateless" by the handover. They possess British-issued travel documents - as opposed to full passports - which offer no autonomous right of abode in Britain. Now that look sets to change with a long-awaited announcement by London, that's expected on Tuesday. SOUNDBITE: (English) "I think everybody will be happy, very happy. And people who are especially effected, to them it is a kind of life saving, because not only they face that they're going to be stateless, but their next future generations. It's not a matter of one generation, it's all the future was bleak. With this one announcement, it makes it very comfortable for them." SUPERCAPTION: Kewalram Sital, Chairman of the Hong Kong Indian Associations. The move effects people who have passports as British Dependent Territory Citizens - they are now eligible for British National Overseas (B-N-O ) status after the handover. Massive queues wound around Hong Kong's Immigration Department last year as thousands of Hong Kongers waited in line for their B-N-O documents. But the ethnic minority citizens argued that without a full British passport they might face discrimination from Beijing which refused to give them Chinese citizenship. Now they have a safety net. SOUNDBITE: (English) "Nobody is leaving, everybody is staying put, that's most definitely. This is a safety net because if you hold a B-N-O passport, after the handover, you are going to be stateless. Because you do not have any nationality and right of abode in any place. So on both counts you're nowhere." SUPERCAPTION: Kewalram Sital, Chairman of the Hong Kong Indian Associations. Many argued it was Britain's moral duty to give the two thousand "stateless" people the right of abode in the United Kingdom. The campaign by the Indian and Pakistani communities had the backing of politicians both in London and Hong Kong. Not that many in the ethnic community want to pack up and leave Hong Kong, but with a full British passport at least they would have a choice. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives ​​ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/e0c73a757ae8f5f86a10bcd6ca974cbf