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Last week it was announced that James Powderly and 9 other activists are being held for 10 days after protesting at the Olympics in Beijing. Now U.S Ambassador to China Clark T. Randt Jr. has asked that the protesters be released. The activists will be held until August 30th and 31st, and Randt Jr., who met with the detainees, said there were no claims of "maltreatment at the hands of Chinese officials," but noted "We are disappointed that China has not used the occasion of the Olympics to demonstrate greater tolerance and openness." While China agreed to allow protests in three designated areas, in which activists could apply for permits, no applications turned in were approved. Meanwhile, GRL has word from Powderly (being held for “upsetting public order”), saying he "is in good health and eager to get back home." UPDATE: This afternoon Students for a Free Tibet tell Boing Boing that the protesters have been released. "James Powderly, Brian from Alive in Baghdad, and everyone else all arrive at LAX around 6 or 7pm tonight," says an SFT rep.
China Keeps Protesters Despite Pleas to Release Them
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They broke the law. Why should they be released?
It's pretty ridiculous that China has protest areas, but won't allow anyone to protest in them.
Designated protest areas? Isn't this what the US government set up to keep the Bush protesters out of the public eye? Just as the US copies China on torture, the Chinese copy the US on democracy.
Better scramble back up that moral high-ground before you point the finger.
We are disappointed that China has not used the occasion of the Olympics to demonstrate greater tolerance and openness.
Why? Are all countries supposed to bow down to the Western system of democracy?
The Olympics are a western invention. Now suck up that spirit of freedom and international cooperation!
"Designated protest areas? Isn't this what the US government set up to keep the Bush protesters out of the public eye? "
You're thinking of the holding pens that the Democrats have set up in Denver.
Seriously, these tools are far too impressed with their own moral preening and don't understand that governments outside the West are are run by folks who aren't crippled with lefty self-loathing. They're also operating under the delusion that they've experienced oppression in the US.
Seems to me that China has cooperated nicely in making this an effective political protest. The protesters' images were initially captured and transmitted, and the incarceration ensured that their message gets a longer shelf-life.
Well said, TSOL.
#3: Yes, but the U.S. does not require applications for protests.
"the detainees... said there were no claims of maltreatment at the hands of Chinese officials"
I feel vindicated in not caring about this before.
...and eager to get back home
and that's all? that was his fight for tibet?
fucking poser.
Yeah. Remember how tolerant The NYPD was of Protesters during the republican convention of 04? That was a whole lot better than China. More beatings. The Chinese didn't even pepper spray any of these fools unlike their US counterparts. China has a lot to learn about pretending to be a free country but actually not being one.
"Remember how tolerant The NYPD was of Protesters during the republican convention of 04?"
The RNC was the MoveON crowd's wet dream: playing at being heroic dissenters in front of the sympathetic media while being in almost zero danger of actual repression.
They get to live out their adolescent fantasies of recreating PBS's idea of the 60's without the nasty firehoses, police dogs, and military draft.
#12- Apparently to you, being forcefully arrested, detained and made to sit in the outskirts of town is not repression. I'd hate to sit at your family dinner table, the stories you'd tell.
Powderly doesn't understand what real dissent is. LED throwies? C'mon... that is for 4th graders or idiots from Williamsburgh or Iowa (same thing). His interests were to get his name in the paper, or on this site, which was a success. He was EXPECTING to be arrested to further his brand. They should have held him for the full time that they originally stated. And then allow him back in to make the same mistake again.
Next time, shoot him.
anybody else find it ironic that China, the country that is most oppressive, has given us the best Olympics ever while America, the country that's most close to the olympid Ideal gave us that garbage that was the 84, and 96 olympics? Even Seoul was better than Atlanta and that was in 88! Cowboys on Pickup Trucks? London's double decker neon umbrella shit was laughable too.
#3: Yes, but the U.S. does not require applications for protests.
The US government doesn't because it's what's called a bicameral government and not a single party system like China. Most cities in the U.S. do require permits. NYC requires permits which are granted on the discretion of the NYPD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameral
These garbages are enjoying free meals and accomodations and their friends are bitching? It looks like "Free Tibet" is really just a subterfuge for "Free my pretentious self-martyring friends". At least Buddhist monks set themselves on fire in protest, these weenies could learn a thing or two from them.