'China is under the gun right now'

Free-Tibet activist expelled by Beijing gets hero's welcome on return to Canada

By Nicholas Keung | The Toronto Star
August 10, 2007

A weary Lhadon Tethong received a hero's welcome from her family and supporters as the human rights activist arrived in Toronto last night - less than two days after being detained by China for calling for freedom for Tibet.

With tousled hair and wearing a backpack, the 31-year-old woman was embraced by her father Tsewang Choegyal, brother Losel and cousin Cindy Rees as a dozen Tibetan-Canadians chanted her name and waved red, yellow and blue Tibetan flags.

"It feels great to be back," sighed Tethong as people threw beige and yellow Tibetan scarves on her neck.

"I was worried about my personal safety," she said. "It's hard not to be freaked out. Whenever I felt afraid and nervous, especially in the night, I would just think about what protection I thought I did have.

"Compared to ... Tibetans and Chinese dissidents - (who have) no protection, no foreign passports or foreign press to come to their aid - what I was doing really felt small compared to that."

Tethong, executive director of the New York-based Students for a Free Tibet, was among three Canadians detained after a group of activists hoisted a banner saying "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet, 2008" on the Great Wall Tuesday, as the one-year countdown began for the Beijing Olympics.

Tethong was detained Wednesday and deported for blogging and posting photos online about what her group called China's "propaganda campaign" in the year leading up to the Games.

Fellow Canadians Melanie Raoul, 25, and Sam Price, 32 - who were among six activists who raised the banner - arrived home in Vancouver earlier yesterday to hugs from their parents and supporters.

"She has been an activist since she was small," said Tethong's father, a Tibetan who met his Canadian wife, Judy, in India before they settled in Victoria, B.C., in 1975. "It's a relief to see her home, safe and sound. We're all proud of her."

Chinese Communist troops moved into Tibet in 1951. Tibetans regard China's presence as an occupation.

Tethong, a graduate of Dalhousie University, said the world has to seize the opportunity to bring China's rights records to the forefront.

"China is under the gun right now," she told reporters at the airport. "They wanted this (Olympic pride), but they didn't want what it means to be a free and open society, which is to allow dissent and to allow protest."

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