Hong Kong promotes itself as 'Asia's World City', but unlike world cities London, New York and Paris, it remains a city where it is legal for a property agent, a hotel or a bar to discriminate against a foreign visitor on racial grounds. Recent revelations about ethnically based extra charges for Filipinos at a Kowloon hotel are no surprise to those who recall similar, previous cases involving Malaysians, or the South China Morning Post's expose of Wan Chai bars refusing entry to all Indians 'because they do not drink enough'. In 1969, Hong Kong entered into an international commitment to end racial discrimination by applying within its territory the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Thirty-nine years later, it still does not have a law against such discrimination. This is the background against which concern is being expressed at the United Nations about obvious gaps in the Race Discrimination Bill now before the Hong Kong's Legislative Council. These gaps include not outlawing discrimination against recent mainland immigrants, who have been shown to encounter a high level of irrational prejudice. They also include an over-wide exception for language discrimination. This is sometimes justifiable, but experience elsewhere shows language discrimination can often be a pretext for hidden racial discrimination, rather than a genuine language need. Because Hong Kong is, by world standards, peaceful and free from the kind of racial violence found in many places, it is wrongly assumed that there is no urgency about tackling racial discrimination here. In fact, Hong Kong is lagging far behind other advanced cities in this respect and is paying a price for doing so. Britain has had more than 40 years' experience of using law and education together to break down what were once widespread prejudices. As a result, intolerant attitudes that were once socially acceptable are no longer so. Australia and Canada, too, have made impressive progress in this area. In Hong Kong, in contrast, racial prejudice, particularly against people with brown or black skin, remains pervasive. The main victims of racial discrimination here are Indian or Southeast Asian residents or visitors, who are refused apartments, jobs, and services because of their appearance. This prejudice is most likely to hit the new resident, such as the Indian business executive who suddenly finds he cannot rent the attractive flat he has been shown. One case Human Rights Monitor dealt with involved a native English teacher recruited by a kindergarten. When the teacher - from England but of Indian ethnicity - reported for work, she was told by the Chinese owner that Indians were not acceptable, and the school wanted a teacher with fair hair and blue eyes. The teacher wanted to sue and only then learned that the kindergarten's action against her had broken no laws. Such discrimination is not only morally outrageous, it is also directly opposed to the essence of good modern business practice, which is recruiting the best person for the job. In today's knowledge-based global economy, would-be 'world cities' compete with each other to attract the most able and qualified migrants from around the globe. This is why Hong Kong has introduced its Quality Migrant Admission Scheme to attract talented high-achievers from overseas. However, there is little point competing to attract talented specialists from Bangalore or Beijing if they are going to be driven away after they arrive by encounters with legally permitted race discrimination. If Hong Kong really wants to be 'Asia's World City' it must enact a racial discrimination law this year, preferably in time for the Olympics. Paul Harris is a barrister and was the founding chairman of Human Rights Monitor
