Chinese bar two pro-Tibet Canadians from Hong Kong

Jorge Barrera ,  Canwest News Service

Published:  Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Two Canadians were among four activists barred from entering Hong Kong Tuesday as China prepared to welcome the Olympic torch and begin its 100-day countdown to the start of the Beijing Olympics.

Former Vancouver resident Kate Woznow, 28, said Chinese immigration officials rejected her entry and put her on an airplane back to New York City five hours after she landed in Hong Kong. Woznow said Tsering Lama, 24, a Nepalese-born Tibetan from Toronto, was also stopped from entering Hong Kong and sent on a flight back to Canada.

"It has been a crazy 36-hour whirlwind," said Woznow in a telephone interview with Canwest News Service early Wednesday morning after landing in New York at around midnight local time.

A member of the Free Tibet Campaign group and the general secretary of Independent Chinese Pen Centre were also prevented from entering the territory the same day.

Woznow, a director with Students for a Free Tibet, said she and Lama planned to take part in a Hong Kong news conference Thursday to highlight the ongoing situation inside Tibet and Chinese regions with large ethnic Tibetan populations. The Edmonton-born University of British Columbia graduate said she believes Chinese immigration authorities turned them away at the gate because of their pro-Tibet activism.

"They are actively scanning for any Tibet activists or human rights people, anyone travelling there to speak about these issues," said Woznow. "They were basically screening passengers without questioning them that thoroughly. They did not get into details about what I was doing there."

Woznow said an official at the airport's immigration counter looked at her passport, filled out a "restricted card," and called another official over who escorted her to a nearby interrogation room. She said the questioning took three hours but remained general in nature and her interrogator often left the room between queries.

"I wasn't going to lie to them. I was going to be honest about what I was doing there," she said.

Woznow, who now lives in New York, had not been in contact with Lama but found out through her organization that the Toronto resident, who landed in Hong Kong two hours after Woznow, was also put through the same process and sent back to Toronto.

A spokeswoman for Hong Kong's immigration department would not comment on individual cases, adding it had "the responsibility to uphold effective immigration control so as to ensure Hong Kong's public interest."

The Olympic torch landed in Hong Kong from Hanoi Wednesday and was carried across a red carpet lined by flag-waving children and a band. It was then taken to a secure location until Friday's planned run through the former British colony and financial hub. Friday's run was the last chance for pro-Tibet activists to make a statement before the torch begins its trip through the Chinese mainland, with a stop on Mount Everest. It is scheduled to reach Beijing for the Aug. 8 Olympic opening ceremonies.

Tenzin Dorjee, deputy director of Students for a Free Tibet, said it would be "extremely hard" to stage demonstrations in Hong Kong in the current climate.

"There are a few Tibetans in Hong Kong and lots of pro-human rights people living there and they may manage to do something," he said.

Woznow and Lama were to participate in a news conference with Free Tibet Campaign's Matt Whitticase, who was also blocked from entering the country. Woznow said they planned to shed light on Chinese actions against Tibetans since the flaring of violent and widespread protests.

Woznow said witness accounts from inside the territory claim people are disappearing after midnight raids on homes, monasteries and nunneries. She said Chinese authorities are using food as a weapon against the monasteries by limiting supplies.

"Authorities are going through and grabbing whoever they can to try and pry statements," said Woznow.
Chinese state press said Wednesday that police shot dead an alleged Tibetan independence "insurgent" in northwest China. It was the first official admission that authorities killed anyone during the recent unrest.

A policeman was also killed in the gun battle on Monday in a Tibetan-populated area of Qinghai province, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Tibet's government-in-exile has said more than 200 people have been killed in a huge Chinese military and police crackdown on protests against Beijing's rule of the Himalayan region that began on March 10.