Foreigners ‘admitted’ watching terror videos
Print Edition
CHINESE police said foreign tourists who were detained and later deported from northern China had admitted watching videos advocating terrorism.
Police in China’s Inner Mongolia region said the mostly British and South African tourists “first watched a documentary in a hotel room. After some of them left, the rest proceeded to watch video clips advocating terrorism,” according to a Xinhua news agency report.
Police seized similar videos “from a mobile phone belonging to Hoosain Ismail Jacobs, a South African national,” Xinhua said.
It said police detained nine foreigners — three Britons, five South Africans and one Indian national — on July 11 in accordance with China’s criminal law which stipulates punishment for “allegedly organizing, leading or joining terrorist groups.”
All the detainees admitted to their illegal acts and repented, Xinhua quoted local police as saying.
The police imposed a lenient sentence and had them deported early Saturday morning, Xinhua said. The others were deported on Wednesday.
Diplomats from relevant foreign embassies had visited their nationals involved in the case, the foreign affairs office in Ordos City said.
Britain said 11 of its nationals had been detained — two of them with dual South African nationality. Officials in London said yesterday all had returned home.
A statement by a British-based spokesman for Jacobs and fellow traveler Tahira Jacobs said last week that the detentions may have been the result of an “unfortunate misunderstanding” concerning a famed Mongolian warlord.
“They watched a documentary on Genghis Khan to further their understanding of the region they were in at the time, and this may have mistakenly been deemed as ‘propaganda’ material,” the statement said.
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