Anti-pickpocket campaign on MTR stopped in its tracks

An advertisement warning MTR passengers to watch out for pickpockets has been reworked by the railway company after complaints about the ethnicity of the featured thief.

The amended MTR poster now shows a Chinese man in a hat and plain blue jumper. Originally the thief had a beard and was wearing a hat, dark glasses and white top with black stripes. In both cases, the thief is shown taking a cellphone from another train passenger's bag.

"After the [first] poster was released in September, we received a few comments from the community that one of the characters seemed to bear a likeness to [a] member of certain ethnic groups," MTR Corporation spokesman Osbert Kwan said.

The MTR Corp declined to reveal which ethnic or national group the man had been mistaken for or to give the number and nature of those complaints. However, internet users had pointed out that the man in the original ad looked like the caricature image of a Frenchman.

"In designing the poster, there was absolutely no intention to depict anyone belonging to any ethnic group," Kwan said.

Current laws do not protect against discrimination on the basis of nationality. The anti-discrimination watchdog, the Equal Opportunities Commission, conducted a public consultation this year exploring how the four anti-discrimination laws - covering sex, family status, disability and race - should be reviewed.