China deports Tibet protest pair
China has deported a British woman and a German man who took part in a protest during the Olympic Games.
Mandy McKeown and Florien Norbu Gyanatshang were put on flights to Frankfurt on Monday morning, said officials from the British Embassy in Beijing and the Foreign Ministry in Berlin.
McKeown, 41, and Gyanatshang, 30, were part of a group of four who last week unfurled a Tibetan flag and shouted "Free Tibet" south of the National Stadium, one of the main Olympics venues.
The group, which also included Americans Jeremy Wells and John Watterberg, was taken away by security agents.
On Sunday night, Wells and Watterberg were part of a group of eight Americans who were sent home after Washington expressed disappointment that the Olympics did not bring more "openness and tolerance" in China.
The blunt US criticism - and China's harsher treatment of foreign activists - came at the end of 17 days of Olympic competition that generally went smoothly for Chinese organisers who had been nervous about security and protests.
No rallies were held throughout the entire Olympics in three parks designated as protest zones after Chinese officials declined to issue permits to 77 applicants, and detained some of them. But mostly foreign activists staged a series of small illegal demonstrations near Olympic venues and at Beijing landmarks.
The foreigners mostly unveiled "Free Tibet" banners before being seized by security officials, hustled into cars and taken away to be put on flights out of China.
A handful of journalists trying to cover the protests were roughed up by authorities then released. There were also tensions with the media over China restricting access to the Internet.
Beijing had promised the media freedom to report the games and announced the protest parks as part of efforts to address criticism that China should not have been awarded the games because of its human rights record and tight controls on internal dissent.
