9 foreign terror suspects detained
NINE foreign tourists, including South Africans, Britons and an Indian, with suspected ties to a terror group have been detained in China for watching banned videos, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.
A total of 20 foreign nationals were suspected of committing crimes in Ordos, north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Nine of them were criminally detained on Saturday, which means they can be held for up to 37 days by police while investigations continue, and 11 were ordered to be deported, the ministry said.
All were suspected of violating the law, it said, without specifying what they had done.
Law enforcement authorities in Inner Mongolia are in touch with diplomatic and consular officials from the countries, the ministry said.
Imtiaz Sooliman, head of the Gift of the Givers Foundation, a South African charity, quoted Chinese authorities as saying that some of the people arrested had been watching propaganda videos from a banned group while in their hotel room.
Shameel Joosub, chief executive of South African telecoms firm Vodacom Group, said members of his family were among those detained.
The group — five South Africans, three Britons and an Indian — included a veteran of the African National Congress’ military wing, Sooliman said.
The British embassy in Beijing confirmed that nine Britons and two dual British-South African nationals had been detained, and that six of them had been deported.
A spokeswoman for the British Foreign Office said: “Consular staff have visited the group to provide assistance and we are liaising with Chinese authorities.”
South African Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Nelson Kgwete told local television that the government had been informed “about the arrest of 10 South African citizens in China” and the embassy was providing consular assistance.
The embassy of South Africa declined to comment.
An Indian embassy spokesman said he had no information on the matter.
The group members were on a 47-day tour of the country when they were detained at an airport in the Inner Mongolian city of Ordos.
Gift of the Givers describes itself on its website as being inspired by Muhammed Saffer Effendi al Jerrahi, a master of Sufism, a mystical form of Islam.
The group, which has provided medical equipment and training in multiple countries in Asia and Africa, said its staff are “facilitators of Almighty God’s Aid ... distributing it from Him to all of mankind.”
“God Almighty Exists. This is a Gracious God to Whom belong the Most Beautiful Attributes,” it said.
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