Hong Kong playwright Yan Pat-to denied entry to Macau on grounds of jeopardising public security

Award-winning Hong Kong playwright Yan Pat-to was denied entry to Macau on the grounds of jeopardising public security on Monday evening, after being detained for two hours.

The reason given in the entry refusal notification issued by the Macau Immigration Department to Yan, 43, was that “there are strong references that [Yan] intended to enter to participate in certain activities which may jeopardise the public order or public security”.

The time of issuance on the notification was 5.25pm, although Yan said he remembered arriving at the Outer Harbour Ferry Terminal between 5.15pm and 5.30pm, and being given the notification at about 7.10pm. He refused the authority’s request that he sign the document.

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“One officer told me some rules had changed recently, soon after I was taken into a separate room from the immigration counter,” Yan said. “When I asked him how I could possibly jeopardise their public security and order, he couldn’t explain.”

At 7.20pm, the playwright was given a ticket for a ferry departing for Hong Kong at 7.30pm.

Yan said he was due to “introduce some of the latest scripts from Europe” in a lecture jointly organised by the International Association of Theatre Critics (Hong Kong) and the Macau Theatre Culture Institute.

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“That was the first time in my life to get an entry refusal,” he said, adding that he had been able to travel smoothly in and out of Shenzhen only a week ago.