Terrifying time in China

Sun Media[Sunday, August 24, 2008]

By KATIE SCHNEIDER

CALGARY -- After being detained by Chinese authorities in Beijing, two pro-Tibet activists from Edmonton were in Calgary yesterday to share stories of their terrifying ordeal and raise their voices about human rights that had been previously silenced.

Steven Andersen, 28, and Denise Ogonoski, 26, members of Students for a Free Tibet, who were deported from China while protesting in its capital city during the Olympics, joined dozens of people from Calgary's Tibetan community at a rally at Olympic Plaza before marching to the Chinese Consulate.

Andersen had been detained and subsequently deported from China after arriving in the country a week before, after trying to display Tibetan flags and raise a banner reading "Tibetans are dying for freedom."

"I think it really speaks a lot to the lengths Chinese authorities are willing to go to silence opposition," he said.

"That whole experience really reinforced the lack of human rights."

NO FLAG

And he said it was ridiculous his group couldn't hang the flag of Tibet in a city where those of other nations were displayed for the Olympics.

"As soon as you pull out a Tibetan flag you get taken out by undercover officers," he said.

Ogonoski was also detained for several hours and later deported after the apartment she and others were staying in was ransacked by police before they had a chance to protest.

"We can have a brutalizing few hours but in the end we get to go home," she said.