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Americans detail imprisonment in China

Boston Globe

Michael Liss of New York speaks to the media in New York, Monday 25 August 2008. Liss was one of eight Americans jailed by the Chinese for protesting during the Olympics. The detainees said outside New York City Hall on Monday that they were held in cells and allowed to leave only for interrogationsAP/Ed Ou/USA

The group’s plan was simple: use a green laser to beam the phrase “Free Tibet” onto the most visible side of the Digital Building. They conducted a successful test run Aug. 18, projecting the phrase “Free Beer” onto the wall. They retreated to a local bar and, after a few drinks, Liss decided to call it a night. He left and hailed a taxi to drive him to his hotel, but just as he moved to open the door, at least a dozen Chinese officials surrounded him and took him away for a 24-hour grilling and six days of imprisonment, Liss said yesterday.

Liss, a 35-year-old freelance projects manager who now lives in New York, had prepared for the likelihood of arrest for protesting China’s alleged human rights violations in Tibet, he said yesterday in a telephone interview. He became involved in the cause through a friend who is a board member of the New York-based Students for a Free Tibet. At least 50 members or friends of the organization were in Beijing. By the time Liss was apprehended, Chinese authorities had already deported dozens of protesters after holding them for about a day, he said. But he didn’t expect the six-day ordeal he says he endured.

Liss was whisked through the bustling city to a makeshift interrogation room in an undisclosed restaurant, where he was questioned for 24 hours, he said. “They asked a ton of questions over and over, one of which was what did ‘Free Beer’ mean.”

After the barrage of questions, Liss and the five other Americans were transported to a detention center in the countryside, where they said they were locked up in a common cell of approximately 320 square-feet with a hand-sized window. They shared the cell with prisoners from other countries, some of whom had been locked up for months.

“When we came to this place, there were these huge doors to a gate that swung open. That was our this-is-not-looking-good moment,” Liss said

The Americans were ordered to strip to their underwear, and prison guards took their clothing and gave them red terry cloth shorts, shirts, and flip-flops and plastic dishes to eat from.

“At that point, we pretty much were certain that we weren’t going to be released anytime soon, that the one-day-and-out thing was not going to be a part of any of our plans,” Liss said.

The men were sentenced to 10 days and had to approve their sentences.

On the fourth day of their imprisonment, two other American men — including Jeremy Wells, a native of Andover who also lives in New York — were thrown into the cell. Wells and John Watterberg were arrested Aug. 21 after attempting to hang a “Free Tibet” banner near the stadium.

A photograph of the men struggling with plainclothes police was published in many newspapers around the world.

Wells, 38, a private school administrator in New York City, said in a telephone interview yesterday, “It all happened in a split second. We held the flag up for just a couple of seconds before they got to us. We already knew that we were being followed around our whole time there.”

Liss said that while he was in jail, he befriended a 19-year-old Chinese prisoner who spoke fluent English. The man told Liss that he was imprisoned for practicing Tai Chi and meditating. He said he was scheduled to be transferred within days to a hard-labor camp to serve out a two-year sentence.

The prisoners were served meatballs with gravy and potatoes and rice, Liss said, but they mostly ate just the rice. “Everything else was awful,” Liss said.

The activist organization required its members to check in several times a day while in Beijing, and when the group of six men failed to do so on the day they were detained, the organization alerted the US embassy in China, triggering a series of meetings between officials of the two countries that received widespread news coverage.

A representative from the embassy visited the detention center Aug. 22. Two days later, on the final day of the games, the prisoners were released.

“It was all very traumatic, very intense,” Wells said.

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