A campaigner for Tibetan self-rule unfurled a banner yesterday near Beijing's Tiananmen Square and then escaped by bicycle, pulling off a rare protest as police patrolled to prevent demonstrations during the annual meeting of parliament.
Wangpo Tethong pulled the banner from his backpack reading "Hu, you can't stop us" in an apparent reference to Chinese President Hu Jintao (
The protest drew no response from the roughly dozen security officers in the area or the scores of tourists milling around.
Shortly after Tethong's protest, a young man who ran across the square shouting in what was an apparently unrelated protest was quickly tackled by about six police officers, bundled into a car and taken away.
A 15,000-member force is on duty outside the meeting of the National People's Congress (NPC) to guard against protests by laid-off workers, farmers with land disputes and others hoping to draw attention to their grievances during the 10-day legislative session.
Since the NPC session began on Sunday, dozens of small-scale protests have been broken up. In almost every case, it has been impossible to tell what the people were protesting about because they have been taken away so quickly.
In a brief interview moments after the protest, Tethong said his protest aimed to express Tibetan aspirations for self-determination.
"I am angry and frustrated to see that Tibetans for more than 50 years are denied their freedom and the right to determine the future for themselves," said Tethong, who is of Tibetan descent but based in Switzerland and is a member of the International Tibet Support Network.
Tethong's whereabouts after the protest were not known.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International yesterday called for the release of at least 10 Chinese activists who were apparently detained by police weeks ahead of the annual meeting of the NPC. Those held include AIDS activist Hu Jia (
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