Security officers in Hong Kong removed a university student who tried to display the Tibetan flag during the Olympic equestrian competition Saturday. Seated in the front row, the student, Christina Chan, displayed a placard bearing the Canadian flag and the Tibetan flag underneath during the dressage portion of the eventing competition in Hong Kong's suburban Sha Tin district early Saturday.
When she tried to peel away the Canadian flag to reveal the Tibetan flag, four or five security officers covered her with a blue cloth and asked her to leave but she refused. Officers carried her out of the venue about half an hour later.
"She was sort of disturbing other spectators around her, which is against the house rules," equestrian event spokesman Mark Pinkstone said. Pinkstone said Chan who also protested at the Hong Kong leg of the Olympic torch relay in May was removed from the venue but not arrested.
Organizers said before the equestrian event that the Tibetan flag would be banned under house rules that prohibit the display of national flags of countries not represented at the competition. The rules also prohibit propaganda on banners, clothing or accessories.
TV footage also showed a man wearing a T-shirt that said "democracy and human rights are more important than the Olympics." The man was asked to take off the shirt before entering the venue.
A former British colony now ruled by China, Hong Kong is promised Western-style civil liberties commonly denied on the mainland, like freedom of speech and protest. Still, the local government has apparently tightened controls because of the Olympics.
An opposition lawmaker says three U.S.-based ethnic Chinese democracy activists were turned away at the airport Wednesday. Olympic organizers moved the equestrian event from Beijing to Hong Kong because of a rash of equine diseases and substandard quarantine procedures on the mainland.
Hong Kong has a prominent horse racing scene. Tibet has been an extremely sensitive topic since protests against Chinese rule turned violent in the region's capital of Lhasa in March.
Similar demonstrations were sparked in Tibetan communities throughout western China and a massive crackdown by Chinese security forces ensued. Pro-Tibet groups say scores of monks and nuns have been arrested, imprisoned and beaten since March.
Many Tibetans insist they were an independent nation before communist troops invaded in 1950, while Beijing says the Himalayan region has been part of its territory for centuries.
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