20 foreigners are deported

China has deported 20 foreigners from Britain, South Africa and India for watching videos that advocated terrorism and religious extremism, state media reported, although two of the tourists reportedly blamed their detentions on a documentary about Genghis Khan.

The New China News Agency said that the foreigners watched an unspecified documentary in a hotel room in China’s Inner Mongolia region, and that later some of them watched clips that advocated terrorism.

Britain’s Press Assn. reported that the documentary was a BBC production on the 13th century Mongol warrior Genghis Khan, citing a statement from two of the British tourists. They said the video “may have mistakenly been deemed as ‘ propaganda’ material.”

“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 statement said.