China Detains Olympic Protesters on Everest

By Radio Free Asia | www.rfa.org
April 25, 2007

KATHMANDU, April 25, 2007—Chinese authorities have detained four U.S. citizens who staged a protest at the Chinese Everest base camp against Beijing's plans to bring the Olympic torch through the region.

On arriving at the base camp, the activists from the U.S.-based Students for a Free Tibet group unfurled a banner which read "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 2008," Kirsten Westby from Boulder, Colorado told RFA's Tibetan service by telephone from a holding cell.

"We had everything on video and we wore shirts with a message to the International Olympic Committee that said, 'No torch through Tibet,'" Westby said. The video was later made available on YouTube.

Four detained on Everest

The protesters were identified by a statement on the group's Web site as Tenzin Dorje, the first known exiled Tibetan to return to the region to protest, Kirsten Westby, Mac Sutherlin, and videographer Shannon Service.

They were detained by base camp authorities shortly after staging a brief ceremony in which they lit an Olympic torch and sang the Tibetan National Anthem, members of the group said.

"It's five of us involved in the action and four of us at this point in time have been detained," Westby said by mobile phone from inside what appeared to be a police cell.

"We are sitting at Everest base camp in a small building with bars on the windows. We were detained by the authorities here at the base camp. One of the members of our team who has been detained is a journalist videographer."

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