Judicatory Authority of Belgium recently announced that Belgian police Sunday arrested 15 Chinese aid-Mali medical staff in Brussels International Airport on suspicion of being involved in ivory smuggling.

Spokesman for Brussels Procuratorate said that the 15 Chinese were detained immediately after they got off the plane in Brussels Airport on their way home from Mali. The reason is the Belgian customs tracked down 150-kg of ivory and ivory products in their baggage checked to Beijing on June 30.

Besides, persons of Belgian customs also found rawhides of the animals under protection and products made of crocodile leather in their luggage. All of these are forbidden for trading in accordance with the international convention. After interrogation, Belgian police suspected that the 15 Chinese belong to illegal smuggling group and decided to arrest them. Later they were put into a jail in Brussels.

The 15-person Chinese aid-Mali medical team was reported to have come from China’s Zhejiang Province. According to Belgian law, anyone who illegally smuggles ivory and ivory products shall be sentenced to two years of life in imprisonment.

In October 1989, the Seventh Conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species was held in Lausanne, Switzerland. The conference passed the international trade amendments for a complete ban on trading of African ivory and ivory products. From then on, trading of ivory and ivory products is absolutely forbidden by the international community.

Since China formally joined the “Convention” in 1981, it has always been taking the management of the imports and exports of wild animals and plants and the striking on ivory smuggling as the key measures to intensify the protection of wild animals and plants.

(People's Daily 08/09/2001)