Chinese citizens dutifully file protest applications in Beijing, suffer detention
Sunday, August 3rd, 2008
Bill Schiller, Toronto Star
August 3, 2008
Like full Internet access, protest zones won’t be exactly as advertised
BEIJING–When Chinese authorities announced that special zones would be established for people wanting to protest during the Beijing Olympic Games, Dr. Ge Wifei and her friends from the southern city of Suzhou took the government at its word.
But on Friday, when Ge arrived in Beijing to file an application to protest, in keeping with government guidelines, she got a rude awakening.
Four Public Security officers from her hometown suddenly showed up, put her into a police car, detained her for hours at a Beijing hotel, interrogated her twice, then put her on an overnight train with two police officers for a 1,000-kilometre journey back home, where she was welcomed by local police and taken in for yet more questioning.
And no, she was told in Beijing, she and her group would not be getting a permit to protest.
“An officer told me that I was from outside of Beijing,” Ge explained in a telephone interview.
“He said it’s written in the regulations that applications from places outside Beijing will not be allowed.”
And so, another promise by the 2008 Summer Games’ hosts and the International Olympic Committee appears to be less than originally believed.