Two UK nationals who were detained in China last week suspected of watching "terrorist propaganda", have said their group were not viewing extremist material but were actually watching a documentary on 13th century Mongolian leader Genghis Khan.
British couple Hoosain Jacobs, 74, and his wife Tahira, 68, arrived back in London yesterday after they were detained earlier this month along with six other Britons, 10 South Africans and one Indian citizen.
According to Hoosain and Tahira Jacobs, the group had not watched extremist propaganda in China, but had instead viewed a historical documentary on founder of the Mongol Empire Genghis Khan by the BBC to further their understanding of the region the day before their visit to the Genghis Khan Mausoleum in Ordos.
According to the couple, the documentary was mistaken for terrorist propaganda. "It can only be assumed that junior officials who made the initial arrest in Inner Mongolia made a mistake, due to perhaps their unfamiliarity of the English language," the Jacobs said in a statement.
Chinese authorities arrested and detained the group on 10 July at Ordos airport, Inner Mongolia, whilst they waited to board a flight to Xian, the next stage of their private sightseeing tour in China.
According to the Jacobs, the group, which is made up of a mixture of Muslims, Christians and Hindus have traveled together in the past to Israel and also to the US. They were arrested 30 days into their 47-day trip to China, accused of watching an unspecified documentary in a hotel room, and illegally "watching video clips that advocate terrorism and religious extremism" on their mobile phones.
In a statement Mr. Jacobs said: "I give an assurance that there was nothing like that and nothing was watched from anyone's [mobile] phone. The only things watched by myself and the group was a short clip of the 10 best western cowboy films of all time and a 40-minute BBC documentary on Genghis Khan".
Ten days on from their arrests, the tourists have all now been deported back to their home countries, following an international campaign for their release, headed by Imtiaz Sooliman, the founder, director and chairman of Gift of the Givers, a humanitarian disaster relief organisation based in South Africa.
Sooliman told Newsweek that his NGO campaigned tirelessly with the media to secure the release those detained in China, applying pressure to the government who may otherwise have held the tourists for much longer.
"The the whole fiasco was a big misunderstanding between the tourists and the Chinese authorities," says Sooliman.
Although none of those detained have been formally charged there are still some questions left unanswered. Sooliman calls for those who have been freed and deported to clear their names.
"Those who have been deported home to India, the UK and South Africa must speak out, tell the world exactly what happened and deny their involvement in terrorism," Sooliman says.
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