China: More foreigners protest, aided by 2.0 tools

Global Voices OlympicsOne (possibly) last protest post before we get back on topic around here; first is the pseudo-guerrilla Exodus 8:1 mission of Christian activist Eddie ‘iamgadfly’ Romero for human rights in China which has seem him paint murals on the walls of at least 2 rooms in upscale Beijing hotels and then go into hiding. He is still tweeting, however, and uploading videos to YouTube.

And today, a protest held by a group of American Free Tibet activists has been streamed live on Qik.com by intrepid citizen reporter @noneck; further footage is being uploaded as this is being posted:

Most recent tweet from @noneck (aka Noel Hidalgo) came less than an hour ago; the video he mentions appears to be this clip:
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

Lhadon Tethong from Students for a Free Tibet did something similar this time last year when she also went ‘underground’, hiding from Chinese authorities as she continued to livevlog her quest to get IOC president Jacques Rogge's attention.

30 comments

  • I don;t understand how the costly vandalism of private property constitutes giving a voice to the voiceless and why GVOL would propagate this video…

    The missionaries memorialized by the people of Nanjing were those who risked their lives and freedom to save others during WWII while living and suffering with the people they aided. These guys spent a fortune on high-tech toys, airfare and such that could have gone a long way toward building a school or library, and been much appreciated, in an impoverished province like Gansu or Sichuan.

  • wei

    Well, one of the few times where

    Christian minister = vandal.

    pure and simple..he also skipped on the bills. Now is this how a pastor suppose to behave?

  • I consider myself a strong supporter for human rights, but these “demonstrations” at TianAnMen so far are just pathetic. Their effect will be zero if not even negative. They don’t involve the Chinese people at all and are just ignorant. In the end people will have the impression that the CCP is right to ban protesters. They are doing a disservice to the HR movement.

    BTW: there are also many other people suffering from the lack of HR in China, are they less important than the Tibetans? Everybody deserves HR!

  • Spelunker

    The idiot vandalizing hotel rooms is plain stupid.
    I hope he gets caught “red-handed” and punished.

    The Tiananmen incident is incredible. This is going to turn into a new training video for Beijing police.
    First of all, there’s no way that protest should have even got started. It went on far too long before police intervention. I can’t understand how those protesters had sufficient time to set up that theater in the middle of Tiananmen Square with people just laying there waiting to be arrested. I’ve seen much quicker arrests when Chinese citizens are involved, so maybe the police were just being Confucianly courteous to protesters from afar.
    Next, when are Beijing plainclothes police ever going to learn how to deal with the Tibet flag? After confiscation you don’t walk around with them for bystanders to see, which brings me to the next point in my lesson (I should get 50 yuan for the previous one!)…why the parade?
    There is absolutely no excuse for plainclothes police to escort foreign “Free Tibet” protesters all around the northeast perimeter of Tiananmen Square. When Chinese citizens see plainclothes Chinese cops walking around with a protester in one hand and a Tibet flag in the other, what are they supposed to think? Are these chanting foreign protesters being led on a cheap tour of Beijing? “This is Tiananmen Square, over here is the National History Museum, now we go around the corner toward Wangfujing…”
    Beijing police should have black bags to put the Tibet flags in, and there should be a van parked right next to Tiananmen Square ready to take protesters away promptly and quietly. (Two tips in one sentence = 100 yuan!)

  • craig

    Disgusted American citizen here. I am tired of these self serving individuals claiming to support Tibet or any place else. If they really want to do something positive then start in your own backyard. Have you even bothered to notice how prisoners are treated at Guantanamo bay? How illegal immigrants are treated? Have you noticed our selective involvement in world affairs? The DPRK is a greater threat to stability than Iraq or Iran but, oh that’s right, they have no oil or anything else of value so where do are troops go? Before these self absorbed idiots go protesting they should learn what is really going on in the world and they can start by learning some of China’s 5000 year history. If they are so adamant about helping Tibet then let them give up all their possessions and become monks.

    At the very least leave the protesting on the back burner until the Olympics are over. This is about athletic excellence and should not be used for personal political aspirations.

  • shall Noel and JK, conceive the whereabouts of this alleged “Christina” ? Or are two gonna pay the bills for him ?

  • […] day after live-vlogging the rare phenomenon that is a loud free Tibet protest in the middle of Tiananmen Square, Noel […]

  • I support human rights, agree that things need to change in Tibet, and am a Christian – but most of the people in this post are just ridiculous. The Christian “pastor” should know better than to vandalize and destroy property – OMBW is right, he should have spent that money to help build schools for Chinese children or something. This “pastor” isn’t helping anyone, and he sure isn’t helping the image of Christianity in his country.

    …and the Tibet protesters? What a joke. All that self-serving protest did was piss off a lot of Chinese bystanders. Why don’t these protesters ever try actually engaging the Chinese people? Protests like this make things worse, not better.

  • quite right, foreigners protesting in tiananmen square will achieve nothing, if the CP was worried about them they’d get treated a lot harsher a lot quicker.

    It’s the worst form of tokenism, as the above poster says, if you want to change the world, tidy your own house first before you go round to others and criticise. There’s nothing more ridiculous than hearing on the radio the other day the sound of americans in tibet shouting “stop the occupation”

  • Jin Kimon

    Could people here not talk about politics, and how you know China, how much understanding about this country and this nation? You only see some small groups of people daily shouting their slogans against China’s human rights or Tibet topics, but have you ever visited there?

    Friend, please go there, if you go there with a right intention, without any deliberately intentions, I bet you’ll enjoy the life in China. I bet you’ll love the people there. I bet you’ll find it so different a world from what you get from medias.

    On the contrary, people in China do not show so much enthusiasms in politics, people live in very good life and homony there. Thus if you ever go, please never take the slogans to disturb people’s life there.

    Respect and mutual respect deserves the praise.

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