Activist groups representing disabled people are demanding a public apology from retail giant Parkson, which refused entry to a elderly wheelchair-bound woman and her daughter.

Parkson yesterday sent a letter of apology to the two organizations - Beijing One Plus One Cultural Exchange Centre (BOPOCEC) and China-Dolls Care and Support Association (CDCSA). But this was not the "public apology" asked for by the two groups.

"We think Parkson should openly acknowledge its fault and apologize on its website. It is not us, but the disabled people to whom they should say sorry," Xie Yan, spokesman from One Plus One told METRO yesterday.

On Oct 8 a woman surnamed Zhang was denied entry to a Parkson store in Nanchang, Jiangxi province with her 80-year-old mother who was sitting in a wheelchair.

A security guard told Zhang that the prohibition was out of concern for her mother's safety. The guard replied that he was just obeying the rules of the store, which explicitly stated through several prohibitory signs posted on shop windows that the disabled, including the blind and those in a wheelchair, were not allowed in the store, together with pets and smoking.

The store manager apologized four days later after outrage by the public.

BOPOCEC and CDCSA protested outside Parkson's Fuxingmen store and called for the public apology on Tuesday. They said they were protesting in opposition to Parkson's regulations and wanted to remind people of the existence of the disabled.

Wu Liheng, Parkson's publicity director, said the company took responsibility for the incident, adding that Parkson did have strict policies protecting the interests of the disabled.

Wu said the Nanchang store could not represent Parkson Group and that it may have management problems.

Yu Fangqiang, an anti-discrimination lawyer at Beijing's Yirenping center, a NGO aimed at stopping discrimination, said: "We do have certain laws to prevent individual disabled people from being hurt but there is no law nor policy in China to protect disabled people form being discriminated against."

"We hope some NGOs in this field can be given the right to supervise in society, so they can represent the public to make public interest litigation against such discriminatory acts."

Xu Haoyi, a 23-year-old brittle bone disease patient from Jiangsu province, said he still felt angry days after learning of Zhang's story on the Internet.

Xu works as an online game developer, and needs to resort to his wheelchair for help for most of the time in his daily life. He said discrimination against the disabled people is very common.

"I was denied service from some taxi drivers before, because they didn't want to take the trouble to help put my wheelchair into the trunk," he said.

"I'm not saying I need other people to help me more or take special care of me. I just hope they can respect people in wheelchairs and treat us equally," Xu said.