Chattanooga native, 'Beijing Six' deported for protest plans

A Chattanooga native is back on American soil after being detained in Beijing during the Olympics for planning to project a laser message about Tibet on a Chinese landmark.

James Powderly, a graduate of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Ooltewah High School, and five other Americans were taken into custody Wednesday by Chinese authorities, according to a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

Mr. Powderly, who moved to New York from Chattanooga in 2000, said he made plans to project a pro-Tibet message on the side of an unspecified Beijing landmark in protest of the Chinese government’s actions in Tibet.

In a phone interview Monday, Mr. Powderly, 32, said he and five other Americans were interrogated for about 24 hours in various hotels before being incarcerated in a detention center.

“We tended to give them not exactly the straightforward truth,” he said.

Students for a Free Tibet, a New York-based activist group that coordinated several Beijing protests of China’s treatment of Tibetans, identified the other detainees as photographers, videographers, writers and bloggers.

In New York, Mr. Powderly is a founder of The Graffiti Research Lab, which tries to help graffiti artists around the world by developing new technologies such as laser- and electronically created graffiti.

On Monday, Mr. Powderly said he brought a few pieces of his laser projector with him into China, but he and assistants purchased the remaining parts from Wal-Mart stores in and around Beijing.

Days before he was taken into custody, Mr. Powderly and the other “Beijing Six,” as the groups have been labeled on various Web sites, began worrying that they might be under government surveillance.

“We just thought, ‘This can’t be true,’” he said. “This city has 3 million people. How can they tail us if we haven’t even done anything?’”

But authorities did, he said, tracking him down and following him on the night he was detained.

Once in custody, Mr. Powderly said he and the other five men were questioned for about 24 hours in various rooms at different hotels. He claims he was shown transcripts of his earlier cell phone calls and asked about code words.

“They asked, ‘What did it mean when my SMS message said I had lost my credit card?’” said Mr. Powderly, who had lost his credit card on the trip.

Officials from the U.S. Embassy met with the detainees Friday, and a statement issued by the embassy said the men had “not claimed any maltreatment.”

Students for a Free Tibet claims that 53 activists from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Tibet, Australia and Japan were detained and deported for participating in, observing or supporting pro-Tibet protests in Beijing between Aug. 6 and Aug. 25.

Chinese law allows administrative detentions of 10 to 14 days when foreign nationals are accused of minor offenses, but the Beijing Six were the first to be held for longer than one day during the Olympics, according to the embassy.