Author:
Publication: United Press International
Date: October 15, 2001
HONG KONG (UPI) -- Travel agents
in Hong Kong and Beijing said China has banned nationals from 19 countries
from buying air tickets for its state-owned airlines in a step-up in security
following the terrorist attacks on Washington, D.C., and New York City
in September. "We were told not to sell tickets to Muslim passengers mainly
for routes going to North America. European routes were later added," said
one travel agent in Beijing.
"I cannot sell tickets to people
from the Middle East who want to fly Chinese airlines to the United States,"
said another travel agent.
A memo was sent to major ticketing
agencies, possibly throughout the world, instructing them not to issue
tickets to people from a list of countries, according to the South China
Morning Post on Saturday. The notice also said that passengers from named
countries who already had tickets should be contacted and told they could
not fly with the airlines. The memo suggested that under certain circumstances
the ruling could be waived.
The memo said, "Tickets shall not
be issued to people from these 20 countries again. Tickets already issued
should be canceled and fully refunded, or processed only after receiving
confirmation from the local embassy or consulate. People from these countries
shall be strictly controlled. But be flexible, they are being told, and
consult the local embassy or consulate to discuss how stringent the edict
should be."
The countries listed are Afghanistan,
Egypt, Israel, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Oman, United
Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, Sudan, Kuwait, Libya,
and Algeria. It added people of Palestinian or Pakistani origin with "unusual
background" should also be denied tickets.
The decision to ban certain nationals
from China's airlines came from rulings by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and the Civil Aviation Department, said the notice.
China's state-run airlines carry
a majority of the passengers traveling to the mainland. China Southern
Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and Air China also fly most of the internal
routes in China.
"I think that awareness of the nature
of discrimination on the basis of race is very weak in China, "said Sophia
Woodman, Research Director in Hong Kong with Human Rights in China. "This
kind of blanket ban is clearly not the way to prevent terrorism and is
discriminatory."
Earlier this week officials with
Pakistan's consulate in Hong Kong lodged a complaint with local authorities
and with China's Foreign Ministry in Beijing after numbers of Pakistani
nationals in this former British colony were denied visas for the mainland.
"The numbers who have been refused
are in the hundreds," said Naila Maqsood, the Vice Consul-General of Pakistan's
consulate in Hong Kong. "These are all people who reside in Hong Kong and
have Hong Kong ID cards. They have not been given any specific reason for
refusal."
Many of those who applied for visas
to the mainland have traveled there on business numerous times and have
never been refused entry before, she said. There are about 25,000 Pakistani
nationals living in Hong Kong and many are businesspeople whose jobs require
them to travel to mainland China.
"To punish an entire nation, or
the members of a faith, for the sins of a few is cruel and unjust," railed
an editorial in the South China Morning Post on Saturday.
"In a particularly ham-fisted gesture
they [China] appear to have singled out Pakistanis, implying they are persona
non grata, regardless of what travel document they hold. This is an extreme
over-reaction, which can only backfire."
"My own apprehension is that they
don't want any Pakistani nationals in China before President Bush arrives
in Shanghai at the end of October," said Maqsood.
President George Bush is expected
to attend an informal economic leaders meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation in Shanghai from Oct. 17 to 21. Analysts in Hong Kong and Beijing
have questioned whether the U.S. president will stick to his schedule and
attend the meeting while Operation Enduring Freedom is in progress.
Diplomatic sources in Hong Kong
who declined to be identified said people from Middle Eastern countries
were facing the same problems as the Pakistanis in obtaining visas for
mainland China. They said they believed China was increasing security before
the APEC meeting and Bush's arrival.
