UK tourists say they were deported from China after watching Genghis Khan film
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Version 0 of 1. China deported 20 foreigners from Britain, South Africa and India because they watched video clips that advocated terrorism and religious extremism, official state media has reported, while two of the tourists reportedly said they had done nothing more than view a documentary about Genghis Khan. Related: Three more Britons held in China to be deported The Xinhua news agency said late on Saturday that the foreigners watched an unspecified documentary in a hotel room and later some of them watched video clips that advocated terrorism. Police also found similar clips on a cellphone belonging to one of the South Africans, Xinhua said. It cited the foreign affairs office of Ordos city in China’s Inner Mongolia region, where police had stopped the 10 South Africans, nine Britons and one Indian on 10 July as they were going to fly to Xi’an, home of the terracotta warriors and their next stop on a 47-day tour of the country. The British embassy had said the group included nine Britons and two with dual British-South African nationalities. Britain’s Press Association reported that the documentary was a BBC production on the 13th century Mongol warrior Genghis Khan, citing a statement from two of the British tourists, husband and wife Hoosain and Tahira Jacobs. They said that the video “may have mistakenly been deemed as propaganda material’.” “It can only be assumed that junior officials who made the initial arrest in Inner Mongolia made a mistake, due to perhaps their unfamiliarity of the English language,” the statement said. The Jacobses also said that the group was a mixture of Muslims, Christians and Hindus who had traveled together in the past, including to Israel and the US. They had visited the Genghis Khan Mausoleum in Ordos the day before they were stopped at the airport. Xinhua said five South Africans, three Britons and one Indian national were criminally detained on 11 July in connection with a law that “stipulates punishment for allegedly organising, leading or joining terrorist groups”. It said the nine admitted to certain acts and “repented”. It said police treated the case leniently and deported them on Saturday. The other 11 were deported on Wednesday. |