Right Guard Will Not Help You Here

Boy, someone is sure sensitive about that whole Tibet thing:

Days without potable water, hours of interrogation, sleep deprivation, and the theft of more than $20,000 in cash and equipment are among the hardships two New Yorkers say they endured as prisoners of the Chinese government during the Beijing Olympics.

“They threatened our lives, threatened the lives of people we know, of our family members, and they told us that they could get us, even outside of China,” a 32-year-old artist from Williamsburg, James Powderly, said yesterday.

He and Thomas Grant, a 39-year-old videographer from the East Village, arrived in New York yesterday morning, having been deported from Beijing on Sunday — the day of the closing ceremonies for the 2008 Games.

. . .

Mr. Grant said he had been in Beijing to give independent journalists and artists technical assistance in getting their work past Chinese authorities. One such artist was Mr. Powderly, who said he was at the games to highlight human rights abuses through public art installations.

The two said they and four other Americans were apprehended outside a restaurant August 19, held for questioning, and then taken to a detention facility on the outskirts of Beijing.

“We were interrogated for periods of six to 10 hours a day in holding pens,” Mr. Grant recalled. “Two days into the detention, we were shown a piece of paper written in Chinese, which none of us could read, and told that we had a sentence of 10 days given to us for a violation of Chinese law. Vague as it was, that was all we were told.”