David Missal, a German citizen and graduate of the University of Hong Kong said on Sunday that he had been refused entry to Hong Kong after an overnight wait in the airport. 

"I was just refused entry to Hong Kong," Missal said online over the weekend. "After 13 sleepless hours under immigration examination in the middle of the night, I was told that I could not enter the city and was eventually allowed to take a plane to Vietnam, where I planned to go only in a couple of days." 

Missal is a senior member of an NGO seeking self-determination for Tibetans.

He posted a picture of his entry refusal notice as accompaniment, which stated that he had traveled to Hong Kong from mainland China, having been granted entry there on the recently-introduced visa-free travel plan for people transiting through the country on a short stay. 

"I was questioned several times and held in a room without any daylight but neon tubes at the ceiling. My luggage was searched. The police did not provide any reason for the entry refusal. In the end, I was accompanied by plainclothes officers to the plane to Vietnam," he said. 

Senior official in the Tibet Initiative Deutschland group

Missal, a 30-year-old award-winning journalist, is the deputy chairman and spokesman of the Tibet Initiative Deutschland group, which describes itself as an organization that since its 1989 foundation has lobbied for "the right to self-determination of Tibetan people and the protection of human rights in Tibet."

It was set up by a mixture of Tibetans in exile and German activists for Tibet.

As a graduate of the University of Hong Kong, Missal is also often outspoken on China's treatment of the costal city that until 1997 was under the control of colonial power Britain.

He petitioned in 2020, when a new "national security law" was imposed on Hong Kong from Beijing, for Germany to sanction China in response. 

"I simply and solely wanted to spend a few days' holiday in the city in which I studied and which during this time won a special place in my heart," Missal said in comments published in a press release by Tibet Initiative Deutschland. "Even that is no longer possible. In 2018 I was able to flee from China's repressive regime to Hong Kong after my expulsion from China — today evidently that is history. I'm sad that Hong Kong has become such an unfree city. I stand shoulder to shoulder with Hong Kong citizens who have to suffer under this regime." 

Tibet Initiative Deutschland's chairwoman Tenzyn Zöchbauer said the organization condemned the Hong Kong immigration authorities' decision "in the strongest possible terms." 

"It is unacceptable that voices critical of the regime are even denied entry in the context of private journeys," Zöchbauer said. "These measures are not just an alarming sign about the continuing loss of Hong Kong's autonomy, but also a clear violation of international human rights standards." 

One country, two systems, but in reverse? 

Ray Wong, the chairman of the Freedom for Hong Kong group that Missal co-founded, meanwhile said that it wasn't just residents of Hong Kong noticing how the city had become less free. "Foreigners are also not safe from the capriciousness of the regime," he said.

People responding to Missal's posts online noted how unusual it seemed that he was refused entry even when the documentation showed how he had traveled to Hong Kong from a Beijing airport on the Chinese mainland, which had allowed him in.

Several joked that this appeared to be the "one country, two systems" method in action, but in reverse, with Hong Kong's rules stricter than mainland China's where Missal was concerned.

China had promised on taking control of Hong Kong to protect the democratic traditions in the city, and to govern it accordingly, something activists allege that it either failed or never intended to do.

msh/rm (AFP)