Blogger/Activist Deported From China For Filming Tibet Protest
By Nicole Belle Sunday Aug 10, 2008 6:00pm
How to get deported in three easy steps. First, go to China. Second, take footage of protesters in Tiananmen Square. Third, put footage up on Qik.[..]
Noel Hidalgo-(a.k.a. Noneck) an activist I once met online in 2006 while attending RootsCamp in Second Life-had a camera as he walked through Tiananmen Square and happened upon some people protesting the human rights violations in Tibet. He wound up on a plane back to the States. Fortunately, Noneck twitters:
02:06 AM August 09, 2008
I'm qik'n an awesome video of a protest i saw in t sq. The frosting came from a cbc camera man who got his passport stolen by police.03:50 AM August 09, 2008
now i'm back at the hotel and realize that i have some really sweet footage05:53 AM August 09, 2008
damn, this is down the street from my hotel. http://tinyurl.com/5btqjc06:23 AM August 09, 2008
fyi my friends, i've moved back to my china mobile sim.08:27 AM August 09, 2008
FINALLY! after 4 hours of mucking with FCE, i have a video that my friend is going to send around. i've i'm lucky it might get onto the wire08:30 AM August 09, 2008
@RachelSterne i'd be happy to travel the world traveling for @groundreport :P going live is gonna be hard but fun! ;)09:46 PM August 09, 2008
wow, the pictures of the war broiling in georgia is mystifying.01:11 AM August 10, 2008
holy shit my t square video has had over 13k views!!! http://tinyurl.com/6mdcmrAbout 21 hours ago
I'm getting deported for filming. Everyone safe. tibet will be free!About 17 hours ago
I'm with americans and canadans we are safe & on our way to la. Pema missing, they said she will be on the next flight to germany. Unsure of her safety.Earlier in the trip, Noel had also experienced his way onto the ESPN blog, advising the reporter to clear out before things got ugly in a different protest on August 5th.
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Naomi Klein: Olympics Are Coming out Party for "McCommunism"
Gah! The Video stops for me at the 53 second point. I hope I get to see the rest of it. Thank you so much for taking the risk to tell the truth. Perhaps if the rest of the world could show such courage the maddness would end. Be safe.
P.S. If you weren't on the No-Fly list before your trip I would check to see if you are now /nod.
Idiots. You're obviously going to be met with hostility blabbing about Tibet in China's capital. If they had some intelligence they would know there's enough human rights abuses on the Chinese mainland to use as a base for protest which might actually be affective.
Andrew @ 2:
I had some trouble with it too. If you move the video cursor past the mark and then back again, you should be able to see the whole thing.
I was surprised that they lit the torch the way they did, I thought for sure that the Chienese would have lit a buddist monk on fire and then catapult him into the cauldron. Glad to see that somebody is willing to speak out for the people of Tibet during the olympics.
You want to see a country without religion in it's government?
Look at China.
I saw the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala on his 50th/ 60th anniversary of becoming Dalai Lama/ becoming head of state in Tibet. I met monks who were jailed and abused. I love the Tibetan people, and they have my utmost sympathy.
However, the fact remains that the Chinese people, who have been brainwashed to hate the Tibetan freedom movement, also deserve human rights. So if you really want bang for the buck in your protest in China, focusing on human rights for all people may be where it's at.
Er, I meant 50th anniversary for becoming head of state, 60th for being recognized as Dalai Lama.
I don't understand how any freedom loving person can watch the Olympics.
The Olympics themselves are a Human Rights Violation.
Host city/country tears down the "slums" (where the empoverished live) then sells the real estate for corporate development masked as "Olympic Venues."
Host city/country rounds up "undesirables" and busses them away or locks them up.
So the relatively well-to-do can entertain themselves watching sports events.
And the corporations make billions.
While grinding poverty, starvation and disease grip 25% of the earth's populations.
Greedy Insensitive Narcissism.
someguy @ 6:
That's a broken logical argument. Just because the set of governments with no state mandated religion includes China (which has horrible human rights issues), that doesn't infer that all governments without state mandated religions have horrible human rights records.
You could also show that many governments *with* state mandated religions have been horrible, but that doesn't mean any state run by religion causes atrocities, such as the "ethnic cleansing" seen in many places in the world, inquisitions, other religious persecution, etc. You've proven nothing.
if someone springs for airfare i'll blog china - for now, check out san francisco:
http://freewayblogger.blogspot.com/2008/08/free-speech-in-san-francisco....
love that morning light...
MountainMan23 @ 9:
Don't start expecting the good ol' US of A to take a stand for human rights. Apart from our habit of torturing people and taking away basic human rights, we couldn't possibly let any human rights violations keep us from showing that we're the best hung nation on the planet. Amateur athletes not winning basketball contests? Bring in paid ringers, force professional athletes to be allowed into the Olympics. This is *far* from the first year this whole thing has been a sham.
someguy @ 6 said:
You want to see a country without religion in it’s [sic] government?
Look at China.
Really? That's what you're drawing out of this? The Chinese people would be better off and more free if there was some sort of institutionalized superstition? You want to see a country with religion in its government? Look at Iran. Or Medieval Spain.
MountainMan23 @ 9:
I totally agree. Thank you!
someguy Says: "You want to see a country without religion in it’s government?
Look at China."
You want to see a Country
withreligion in it's government?Look at Saudi Arabia
PBI @ 13:
Well said.
Tibet can't be free, the Dalai Lama isn't after that either. He wants it to be a protectorate of China with him ruling the serfs like he and his cronies did before china came in.
Dutch Delight @ 17:
Link?
Only about six more months of Bush
Imagine that
L.A. Confidential @ 19:
Imagine the damage Bush can still do in those six months.
The following countries do NOT espouse a "national or a State religion":
These states do not profess any state religion, and are generally secular or laist. Countries which officially decline to establish any religion include (via Wikipedia):
* Australia
* Azerbaijan
* Canada
* Chile
* Cuba
* People's Republic of China
* France
* India
* Indonesia
* Ireland
* Israel (which considers itself a "democratic Jewish state", although "Jewish" might be construed to refer to the people rather than the religion)
* Jamaica
* Japan (Shinto until end of WWII)
* Kosovo[13]
* Lebanon (although president must always remain a Maronite Catholic, and prime minister a Sunni Muslim)
* Mexico
* Montenegro
* Nepal (declared a secular state on May 18, 2006, by the newly resumed House of Representatives)
* New Zealand
* Nigeria
* North Korea
* Romania
* Russia
* Singapore
* South Africa
* South Korea
* Spain
* Turkey
* United States
* Venezuela
* Vietnam
It would be very difficult to establish a set of criteria by which one could measure the effect of the 'absence' of "god' from the nature of their national affairs.
LibertyLover @ 20:
Whixch is why that fucking Pelosi bitch should be throttled.
If the busheviks were under indictment, they might be moving more carefully as they steal the last of the white house silver and ruin the last of the environmental protections for the benefit of their corporate paymasters...
Maybe its just me, but I'm neither surprised nor particularly outraged... It's that whole 'forget Jake.. It's China etc... What'd anyone expect really?? Or if I wanted to respond with something other than snark, MountainMan23@9 prettymuch covers it. I tend to agree with that perspective.. The Olympics.... I appreciate the Athletes desire to compete... But given the politics, the business angles, the doping and other cheating suspicions and all the social upheaval points MountainMan brought up... Not to mention our own misbehavior as a nation during the last five years which is truly over the top given our rhetoric on human rights??... I've pretty much been over it for a long time... I guess the last time I got truly excited about any of it too much was when the U.S. hockey team beat the Soviets as underdogs and Mary Lou did her thing in gymnastics..... When was that, 1980??? Yea, that's about the last time I took a real interest....JD
Jo @ 14:
America:
Poverty
Racial discrimination
Sexual discrimination
Abu Ghraib
Guantanamo Bay
Vaccinating soldiers with unknown substances and covering up their deaths
Operation paperclip
Operation teapot
MKUltra
The Plutonium Files
Tuskegee Syphilis Study
HAARP
Wanton slaughters of innocent Iraqi men, women and children
Police violence (google taser deaths)
Disproportionate amount of non-Caucasian people in prison
Disturbing amount of women and children who are victims of sex crimes and human trafficking
400,000 women under the age of 18 involved in prostitution
That is the face of America...and these are human rights? When do we get the next Olympics? It will put us right up there with Nazi Germany and China!
someguy @ 6:
You want to see a country without religion in its government? Look at the US 20 years ago.
Want to see a country with religion in its government? Look at Iran.
Craig@25
You said it all. We WERE a free country...and it felt great. So sad.
craig @ 25:
Yes Yes after all if you don't like the President he must be an atheist.
Someguy:
A belief in god, or absence there of, is not prerequisite for a country or its peaple to behave badly. I would point to the behavior of the USA, my country, as a good example as to how a belief in "God" has nothing to do with Peace, Love and Understanding in our modern world. It seems to give us Carte Blanche to be openly devious and crappy to eachother without consequence.
Widespread:
I agree with you. The problem is Tibet is a tiny little country getting kicked around by a BIG country with a population of over a billion people with a tightly controled informational and media structure. As the students and workers that protested in Tiananmen Square on June 4th 1989 found out, with most of the free world looking on in horror, the Chinese government is interested in domination and control of its people and anyone else it considers part of the Chinese population regardless of geography, religion or culture. After the blood was washed away and the survivors were detained or worse and discussion of the slaughter was strictly forbidden and the whole incident has, for all intents and purposes, been removed from Chinese history. How do you overcome a power like that? One that can commit an atrocity on live TV and not even bat an eye!
woody, tokin librul @ 21:
They also don't (for the most part) forbid people of faith from holding public office.
Andrew @ 28:
I suppose I posted poorly.
Still I doubt that if at any point in the PRC's history they had a theist President of some sort they would be so hate filled towards people whos crime is that they dare to think in a way that the government doesn't dictate.
Andrew @ 28:
Yeah, I don't think you "overcome" in the traditional sense. I think you have to preach the word of freedom and hope, but you also have to know your audience. Screaming "Tibet" in China right now is like screaming "Go Islam!" in the U.S.
I don't know what to make of this story.
He was deported not emprisoned.
It's like when missionaries get captured by terrorists
Not only is their danger greater
But I'm wondering WTF they're doing in such a high-risk area?
Here's another thunk.
Tourists and reporters used to get arrested in the USSR and accused of espionage.
Often CIA and probably MI6 used tourism and reporting as a cover.
So what's to stop the Intelligence Agencies from infiltrating the blogs so they can use them as cover for espionage activities?
Not only has this probably already happened.
But the possiblilty of being accused of this by a hostle power is high.
Whether we like it or not China still has their sovreignty.
Whats the big deal? Bloggers and video activists get kicked out of big democratic and republican conventions and other political and social events in America all the time!!!! (...lets worry about censorship in America for a sec)
The only difference is that in China wont just take you down to the corner of the street and stick you in a free speech zone (like we have here in America) ...they take you all the way out!
...hooray for free speech zones! ...at least we still got em. snark
Dude, don't fuck around with snark when it comes to civil liberties.
Irony (read perfectionist snark) is the enemy of the good.
But here's to nihilism:
teh humns r ded
someguy @ 30 said:
I suppose I posted poorly.
Still I doubt that if at any point in the PRC’s history they had a theist President of some sort they would be so hate filled towards people whos [sic] crime is that they dare to think in a way that the government doesn’t dictate.
Seriously, what in the world are you talking about? Are you honestly contending that theocracies are tolerant of people who challenge orthodoxy or doctrine? The whole BASIS for theocracy and theism is rigid adherence to faith, to scripture and to direction from the church/government. Again, Saudi Arabia is a theocracy; Spain during the inquisition was a theocracy - do you see a pattern?
Conversely, if you are talking about an individual leader with religious tendencies, I would point to the strides in social justice made in both Europe and the United States under presidents who did not predicate their rule on religion. If you want to see a liberal democracy led by a religious zealot, just look at (Still) President Bush, our born-again, theist-as-they-come Glorious Leader who has us bogged down in a nasty, optional war against people who have a different world view than he and his cronies.
I sincerely don't mean to be rude, but if you're going to make some sort of sweeping statement like the above, I think it would be better received if you could support it with facts or examples.
Jo @ 14:
I refuse to watch any of the events. Anyone who does should really take a good look at themselves and ask if they're doing a good thing.
Stop supporting evil.
PBI @ 36:
Interesting I never thought of China as an atheist theocracy before.
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