Filed under: 2008 olympics, abc news, beijing, Britain, China, Dictatorship, Dissent, Empire, Europe, european union, human rights, Media, olympics, Protest, tibet, tibet protests, torch relay, United Kingdom | Tags: iain thom, lucy marion, Tiananmen Square
Olympics: Britons & Americans arrested for flying pro-Tibet banners
London Telegraph
August 6, 2008
Iain Thom, 24 from Edinburgh
and Lucy Marion, 23, from London were seized along with two American protestors after they scaled lamp-posts outside the ‘Birds Nest’ Stadium to make their protest.
The demonstration was one of a number of protests to highlight Tibet and religious freedom which took place around Beijing to coincide with the arrival of the Olympic torch in Tiananmen Square.
Ms Marion, 23, who grew up in Cambridge and now lives in London is a graduate of Bristol University and, according to the activists’ website, has been campaigning for Tibetan rights since visiting Tibet in 2003.
Mr Thom, a grass roots co-ordinator for Students for a Free Tibet UK climbed a 120ft lamppost with an American protestor, Phill Bartell, 34 from Colorado, to string up a 200ft-long banner.
The message, “One World, One Dream: Free Tibet” – a parody of the official “One World, One Dream” slogan of the Beijing Olympics – remained on display for more than an hour before Chinese police moved in, the activists claimed.
Mr Thom spoke by mobile telephone to ABC News, saying he entered China on a tourist visa.
He said: “I’ll probably get detained by the police and then ejected out of the country but I believe it’s not anywhere near the risk or the fear that Tibetans are living under the occupation of the Chinese government.”
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