From AP:
Three pro-Tibet activists who planned to protest during Hong Kong’s leg of the Olympic torch relay were deported after they arrived at the territory’s airport Tuesday, activists said.
It was the second known instance in which activists have been denied entry ahead of the Olympic torch’s arrival in Hong Kong on Wednesday. The flame’s return to Chinese soil follows a global tour marred by protests against Beijing’s human rights record and its recent crackdown in Tibet. …
Activists said Kate Woznow and Tsering Lama, organizers of Students for a Free Tibet, and Matt Whitticase, organizer of the Free Tibet Campaign were turned away after arriving in Hong Kong on Tuesday.
Meanwhile in Nepal, William Brant Holland, an American mountaineer, was deported after military officials discovered a “Free Tibet” banner in his backpack while he was attempting to climb Mount Everest. From the Times Online:
William Brant Holland was also banned from climbing in Nepal for two years for violating a ban on political protests while China takes the Olympic torch up Everest in the next ten days.
Mr Holland left Kathmandu for the United States on Monday, after being questioned by Nepalese tourism officials, the two agencies that arranged his trip told Times Online. …
Mr Holland, from Virginia, is the first mountaineer to be deported since China and Nepal imposed restrictions on climbers to avoid disrupting the torch’s ascent of Everest, the world’s highest peak at 8,848 metres.
