Posted on 10/13/2001 5:21:29 PM PDT by Sunshine55
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. (Kirk Troy in Beijing contributed to this story.) Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.
Smart people, the Chinese.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.