Five foreign activists were deported after they scaled a landmark building in Beijing yesterday to unfurl a “Free Tibet” banner over an Olympics billboard in the latest protest during the games.
Students for a Free Tibet said the protesters — three Americans, a Briton and a Canadian — were detained by police after hanging the banner from the new headquarters of state-owned China Central Television (CCTV), which is still under construction and is notable for having a shape likened to a twisted “Z.” Britain’s Sky News shot footage of the protest, showing the helmeted activists draped in Tibetan nationalist flags and dangling from ropes as they hung the black-and-white banner about 6m off the ground. Police quickly took the banner down.
PROPAGANDA SYMBOL
The activists chose the CCTV building because it represents the government’s use of state media to spread propaganda, spokesman Kurt Langer said.
“They’re trying to whitewash their human rights record and present a pretty picture to the world when, in fact, behind the facade is an ugly reality and the situation in Tibet is as bad as it’s been in a very long time,” Langer said by phone.
The Beijing Public Security Bureau said in a faxed reply to questions that the protesters had “engaged in activities that violated Chinese law.”
The group’s campaign director, Kate Woznow, confirmed the five activists were deported yesterday.
It was the latest in a series of protests by activists who have sought to use the Games to criticize China for rights abuses and religious restrictions.
Other foreign protesters have also been quickly deported.
The action came a day after the International Olympic Committee urged China to allow foreign reporters at the games to report freely after a British journalist trying to cover a protest said he was manhandled by police.
Activists have also complained that protest zones designated by Beijing organizers were set up as a way to catch dissidents — not let them speak out.
At least one person who applied to hold a demonstration in one of three protest parks was detained by police.
FAKE MINORITIES
Meanwhile, children from China’s dominant Han population represented Tibetan and other ethnic groups in a key part of the Olympic opening ceremony, an official said in comments published yesterday.
If confirmed, it would be the third faking incident of the ceremony, after it was revealed a little girl was substituted as a singer because she was deemed too ugly and fireworks on the TV broadcast were pre-recorded.
Fifty-six children carried out the Chinese flag in a moment meant to showcase national harmony during the ceremony at the Bird’s Nest stadium. Organizers had claimed one was from each official ethnic group in China, but they were in fact all Han, an official with the dance troupe that the children belonged to told the Asian Wall Street Journal.
“I assume they think the kids were very natural looking and nice,” the paper quoted Yuan Zhifeng, deputy director of Galaxy Children’s Art Troupe, as saying.
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