Oly: Deported US protestor speaks on China detention

AAP General News (Australia)
08-08-2008
Oly: Deported US protestor speaks on China detention

LOS ANGELES, Aug 7 AFP - An American pro-Tibet activist deported from China after staging
a protest near Beijing's Olympic stadium says he was interrogated aggressively by police
before being bundled onto a flight home.

Phill Bartell, 34, was one of four US and British activists who made world headlines
on Wednesday when they scaled a pole and unfurled giant "Free Tibet" banners close to
Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium.

Bartell, a member of the Students for a Free Tibet group, said he had not been physically
mistreated by Chinese police following his detention and expulsion from China.

However he said he had been subjected to several hours of "aggressive interrogation"

and was refused access to US embassy staff before being forced to buy a return ticket
to the United States and whisked out of the country.

"We were not roughed up but we were interrogated very aggressively for about eight
hours," Bartell said after arriving in San Francisco from China.

"They wanted to know where we were from, how long we'd been planning it, if anyone
had been helping us, who our contacts in China were. Kind of technical questions like
that," he said.

He said repeated requests to be allowed to contact the US embassy following his detention
were rejected. "I was asking every few minutes to be allowed to contact the embassy but
they just flat out refused," Bartell said.

A State Department spokesman said China had 72 hours to notify the US government of
the detention of a US national.

Bartell, who had entered China on a tourist visa, said he was not informed of the specific
reasons why he was being deported, only that he had "been acting illegally and broken
the law".

"They grabbed our credit cards and made us buy tickets on the next available flight,"

he said. "They were very excited to get us out of there and keep the Tibetan issue as
quiet as possible."

Students for a Free Tibet have been dogged campaigners against what they see as Chinese
repression in Tibet, the western region known as the "rooftop of the world" that has been
under Chinese rule since 1951.

AFP jmt

KEYWORD: OLY08 TIBET US

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