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SCMP Reporter

Discrimination against ethnic minorities could hamper Hong Kong's drive to become a world-class city, people interviewed in a survey believe.

A poll of 83 people covering several ethnic groups also revealed that discrimination is  prevalent in almost every section of society  - even in government departments.

The study by the Society for Community Organisations (Soco), carried out over the past five months, spoke to Africans, Nepalese, Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Filipinos and Indonesians in Hong Kong.

Soco's director, Ho Hei-wah, attributed racism to increasing feelings of Chinese ethnicity since the handover and a lack of laws to tackle racial discrimination.

The survey found racial bias existed in employment, accommodation, shopping and restaurants.  It also found the minority groups felt there was discrimination in their dealings with law-enforcement officers and at hospitals.

Mr Ho warned that if the trend was allowed to continue, the SAR could drop its dream of becoming a world-class city, as proposed by Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa.

'Officials have been advocating making the SAR a world-class city,' he said.

'With this rampant discrimination in our community, how can we convince people we are a world city that accepts people of all races to come and work here?'

One example was India, Mr Ho said, which is one of Asia's most advanced countries in terms of having a rich pool of information technology experts. 'As Indians may fear they will be subject to harsh discrimination, they will drag their feet and may not come here to work,' Mr Ho said. 'We stand to lose their expertise.'

Survey researcher Annie Lin said more than 32 per cent of respondents said they had been refused a job due to their nationality, while bosses had shut them out by claiming they did not speak Chinese for positions that did not require a command of the language.

One-third of those surveyed said they had been turned away by landlords when trying to rent flats.

They claimed that landlords in general tended to discriminate against certain nationalities, associating them with the image of 'being poor and unable to pay the rent'.

More than 30 per cent said they were discriminated against by police on the streets and 60 per cent said they felt immigration and Customs officers at the border were prejudiced.

Miss Lin said ethnic minorities were largely considered to be troublemakers, presumed to be using fake documents or illegally overstaying their visas.

She said nearly 60 per cent of the respondents in the survey had had their identity checked on the street by police.

More than 46 per cent of respondents said they had also been discriminated against at hospitals, often as a result of language barriers. Ten of them felt that when shopping or eating at restaurants they were either cold-shouldered by shopkeepers or upset by Chinese diners, who moved away from their table when they sat near them.

There are about 300,000 people from ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, Soco says.

Hong Kong is a signatory to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination but it only has laws prohibiting discrimination by sex, age or family status, not race.

Mr Ho said the Soco survey would be presented to a United Nations committee later this year.



Racism 'could hamper world-class image'