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Shirley Lau

During a recent discussion over drinks, Hong Kong-born ethnic Indian barrister Vandana Rajwani and friends touched on the issue of racism, a topic close to her heart.


  Then someone remarked, tongue in cheek: ''If you are in a hurry at the immigration counter in Hong Kong airport, never stand behind someone with dark skin  it will take you ages to get through.''

  For Ms Rajwani, chairwoman of Hong Kong Against Racial Discrimination, the remark not only elicited a laugh but bitterness.

  The treatment of visitors and Hong Kong residents from South Asia  India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka  by immigration officials has become a hot topic of discussion recently following allegations of discrimination from Indian writer Amit Chaudhuri and classical singer Shubha Mudgal.

 ''I'm fairly certain that racial profiling is one of the considerations that's taken when they select individuals for immigration checks. South Asian are more likely to be picked on than Caucasian people,'' said Ms Rajwani.


  She has held discussions with community groups and attended forums which have led her to a conclusion: the problem has been exacerbated by the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, with many South Asian visitors to the SAR facing longer and more stringent immigration checks.

 The Hong Kong Government denies it is conducting racial profiling.

  ''Some visitors, irrespective of sex, age or nationality, are subjected to questioning or detailed examination to ascertain the bona fides of their visit,'' said a spokesman for the Security Bureau.

  However, Ms Rajwani's concerns are being echoed by leading figures in Hong Kong's South Asian community who claim to have received many complaints from travellers subjected to tighter checks at immigration counters in the past seven months.


 The Indian Chamber of Commerce said it had received about 20 letters from Indian business people who claimed to have been held up at the airport or Lowu train station for hours before being allowed to enter Hong Kong.

 ''Last year at this time we had no such complaints at all,'' said chamber chairman Raj Sital.

  ''I don't know whether the Government is doing it for security reasons after September 11. The majority of Indian visitors have been allowed to enter Hong Kong but the problem lies with the delays and embarrassment caused by the checks,'' he said.
  Another group, the Indian Association, wrote to Immigration Director Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong on April 16 to highlight the problem after receiving a number of complaints.

 Two days later, Amit Chaudhuri, an award-winning novelist attending the Hong Kong Literary Festival, was held up for an hour upon arrival. 

  It was his ''worst travel experience'', declared the 39-year-old Indian, who said immigration officials had never given him a reason for his detention.

  Chaudhuri said he had produced a printed e-mail letter of invitation from the festival's organiser  but was still held. 

 ''They didn't say anything. Inside the room, 95 per cent of the people were South Asians. Everybody was too terrified to talk to each other. At that moment, I thought I would not come to Hong Kong again,'' he said.

 Now it has emerged that another Indian celebrity endured a similar predicament last year. The Sunday Morning Post reported Shubha Mudgal, a well-known classical singer and composer, flew into Hong Kong from Mumbai with her husband and a friend in November to perform at an arts exhibition organised by the University of Hong Kong.

  Shortly after their flight landed at Chek Lap Kok, the trio were led from the immigration counter to a room packed with more than a dozen other South Asian visitors.  They said they were held for an hour and then questioning by immigration officers about the reason for their visit. 

 ''I found myself in a room full of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi people,'' said Mudgal.

  ''Maybe there were other rooms with visitors from non-Asian countries that I did not see. I understand this is a difficult time for everyone and the Immigration Department has to be very careful. But we were a little taken aback and upset.'' 

 The recent treatment of visitors from South Asia has sparked memories of the Immigration Department's decision in 1999 to reduce the visa-free entry period for Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indian visitors from three months to two weeks. Officials said visitors from those countries had been overstaying, seeking work illegally and using forged documents, but the community chided the move as racial discrimination.

  According to Government figures obtained by the South China Morning Post, there were 179,741 Indian visitors to Hong Kong last year and 69 were arrested for overstaying  a drop from 78 in 2000 and 74 in 1999. Last year, two people were arrested for illegal employment, compared with five in 2000 and one in 1999. Figures on other South Asian countries are unavailable.

A source from the South Asian community who deals with the Government over immigration matters said statistics proved immigration offences had little to do with the stringent checks on South Asian travellers. ''The checks are unlikely to be related to overstaying or illegal work problems. They are negligible, as shown by the figures,'' the source said.

   The Pakistan Association of Hong Kong said the problem arose from the aftermath of September 11. The association said it had received dozens of complaints from Pakistani travellers and that Immigration officers were particularly targeting Pakistanis before they even reached the entry point.

  ''I was told that as soon as the flights from Pakistan landed and the passengers came out, the immigration people would stop the Pakistani visitors at the arrival hall. They would ask them to stand aside to check their documents. That was before the people reached the immigration counters. It's very embarrassing for everybody,'' said association president Shezad Shaikh.

  South Asian travellers had always faced tighter immigration checks than Chinese and Caucasians, but the stop-and-check tactic was unheard of before September 11, said Mr Shaikh.

  A spokesman for the Immigration Department declined to comment on the alleged tactic, saying it touched on the department's ''operational matters''.

   The department and the Security Bureau would not comment on changes to its policy on immigration checks since September, but maintained their operations were solely to protect the SAR without racial bias.

 ''In line with international practice, the Immigration Department conducts checks on visitors which are necessary to ensure they come to Hong Kong for legitimate purposes,'' a bureau spokeswoman said.
  Community-based groups said they appreciated the need for security checks but hoped for a more sophisticated approach.


 Mr Sital, of the Indian Chamber of Commerce, said: ''If it's a first-time visitor and he doesn't have much money apart from a return ticket, then by all means, take him aside and question him. But when you have visitors who have been to Hong Kong before, they should be able to pass the immigration counters quickly.''

 Christine Loh Kung-wai, a former legislator who has long been campaigning for racial equality, called for more transparency of the procedures in which travellers are held up at the airport.

 ''It's very hard to argue with officials when they cite security concerns. But what we can ask is for them to be more transparent on what they actually do when detaining someone inside a room. I think more could be done to improve the situation,'' she said.

Shirley Lau is a staff writer
for the Post's news desk 
shirleylau@scmp.com



One system, 'two treatments'