HK bars China dissident

Chinese-born Harry Wu is now a U.S. citizen

HONG KONG, China -- The U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong says that the local government's decision to turn away a Chinese-American dissident could hurt its image as an international city.

Harry Wu, who heads the U.S.-based Laogai Foundation, a human rights watchdog, was barred from entering Hong Kong when he arrived from Washington late Sunday.

He was held overnight in an airport immigration office and then put on a flight to Tokyo early Monday, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Democracy and Human Rights in China.

Wu planned to spend time with friends in Hong Kong and had no intention to enter China, which expelled him in 1995 after convicting him of stealing state secrets, his wife, Chen Ching-lee, said.

A security official at Chek Lap Kok Airport told Wu he was turned away because of "safety problems," Chen told the Associated Press news agency.

The U.S. Consulate said it had demanded an explanation from Hong Kong about why an American citizen was barred.

Americans do not require visas to enter Hong Kong and are normally admitted without incident.

"This could have the effect of limiting the freedom of association and the free flow of ideas," consular spokeswoman Barbara Zigli said.

"It is important to Hong Kong's success as an international city that it remain open to the traveling public."

She added it was also important that the city's autonomy be maintained and that it uphold rights and freedoms enshrined in international human rights documents.

The Hong Kong Immigration Department said it would not comment on individual cases.

A source in the dissident community in Hong Kong said the Immigration Department had a list of well-known Chinese dissidents that it would not admit into Hong Kong.

Earlier this year, Wang Juntao, a New York-based dissident active in the 1989 Beijing Democracy Movement, failed to get a visa to come to Hong Kong to attend an academic conference.

The source said Hong Kong authorities had tightened control over immigration in the run-up to the fifth anniversary of the July 1 transfer of sovereignty to China.

President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji will pay a brief visit to Hong Kong to mark the occasion.

"Beijing does not want dissidents and Falun Gong members to be in Hong Kong in this sensitive period," the source said.

Wu spent 19 years in Chinese labor camps after speaking out on human rights in the mainland.

He was arrested trying to enter China in June 1995. Convicted of stealing state secrets, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison but immediately released and thrown out of the country.