Beijing, Jul 19 (EFE).– The Chinese government deported 20 tourists from the United Kingdom, India and South Africa who had been arrested in Inner Mongolia for allegedly watching “a video inciting terrorism and religious extremism,” authorities here confirmed on the weekend.

The state-run Chinese press on Sunday said that the group of tourists had been released without charge and returned to their countries of origin after spending a week at a detention center.

According to the Chinese police, the foreigners, who were on a 47-day trip organized by a Chinese tour operator, watched a documentary in their hotel rooms and, after some of them left, the rest “began to watch videos inciting terrorism.”

The authorities say that the police found similar videos on one of the mobile phones belonging to one of the tourists, Hoosain Ismail Jacobs, a South African.

However, in a communique released by the Jacobs family, another version of the incidents surrounding the arrests was offered, saying that everything was the result of “an unfortunate misunderstanding.”

According to the communique, the group watched a documentary on Genghis Khan “to further their understanding of the region they were in at the time (Inner Mongolia), and this may have mistakenly been deemed as ‘propaganda’ material,” the statement said.

“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 communique continued.

The communique also notes that nobody among the tourist group has any criminal history.

The tourists were detained at the Ordos airport in China’s region of Inner Mongolia on July 10, just before they were scheduled to depart on a flight for the next stop on their “deluxe sight-seeing tour,” Xian.

The group, comprised of nine Brits, 10 South Africans and one Indian began their trip in Hong Kong and had been scheduled to finish it up in about two-and-a-half weeks in Shanghai. EFE