Letter to the Chairman from Professor
L Shao
I would like to respectfully draw your attention
to apparently Beijing imposed refusals of entry at Hong Kong airport,
and seek your help to protect "one country two systems"
for the Territory and to address the issue of financial losses
of the UK organisations and individuals affected by such incidents.
I am a professor at the De Montfort University
in Leicester and was visiting Hong Kong as the external examiner
of two successful UK degree courses which are run in Hong Kong
and have hundreds of local students. Upon arrival at the HK airport
on Sunday 24 August, I was refused entry, detained for 10 hours,
and subsequently deported back to London.
This irrational treatment was in sharp contrast
to my trouble-free visits to HK in the past three years for exactly
the same examination duties. Media reports have shown that an
Olympic blacklist was in operation which was designed by Beijing
to keep out dissidents during the period of the Games and has
reportedly affected many including Dr Dan Wang, a leader of the
democracy movement (see SCMP 24/8/08).[140]
I have been blacklisted by the Chinese regime for many years for
being a follower of the Falun Gong movement and particularly for
my work to help free incarcerated Falun Gong adherents including
my sister-in-law, who has been sent to an RTL camp, without trial,
in Guangzhou, China.
This and other reported refusals of entry pose
questions about the robustness of HK's adherence to "one
country, two systems", at least in the important area of
freedom of travel, where Beijing seems increasingly able to impose
its ways when and where it wishes.
The fact that I was refused entry when my visit
was purely for business reasons made the incident all the more
deplorable. In my absence as the external examiner, about 100 students
would not be able to graduate properly—the consequences
being substantial disruption to their lives and to the course
operation by the UK University, which has done an excellent job
in establishing a solid foothold in the competitive HK education
market. The irrational deportation certainly has implications
of financial and other losses for the UK university concerned,
which you may wish to urge the HMG to address through appropriate
channels in Hong Kong.
27 August 2008
140 Not published. Back
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