Protesters hang ‘Free Tibet’ banner before security tightens for San Francisco APEC summit

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Three activists of the San Francisco chapter of Students for a Free Tibet have on Nov 10 hung a banner from the roof of the city’s Moscone Center, denouncing Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “dictator” and calling for “Free Tibet” ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit to be held there over Nov 15-16.

“It may be that the group chose to do it today because, starting Nov 11 or 12, the whole area is going to be locked down with Secret Service and other law enforcement guarding the perimeter, noted sfist.com Nov 10.

The banner read: “Dictator Xi Jinping, Your Time is Up! Free Tibet.”

Given the already tight security, the banner appeared only briefly around noon above the entrance to Moscone North, reported sfstandard.com Nov 10. Activists have accessed the roof of Moscone via a publicly accessible pedestrian walkway.

The report cited a woman working at Moscone Center as saying the activists yelled “Free Tibet” for about a minute before apparently taking down the banner of their own accord.

“It was there for two minutes, as soon as we saw it, they rolled it up.”

No activists were detained by police.

The report cited Tenzin Namgyal, a 17 year-old Tibetan-American activist who was part of the unfurling, as saying the group was hoping President Biden would speak out against Tibetan assimilation.

“Since China’s President Xi last visited the US Tibetans have witnessed our language, religion and culture come under direct attack from Xi’s genocidal policies and we are facing the elimination of our distinct Tibetan language, culture and identity, if the world doesn’t act,” Namgyal has said.

“Xi can’t hide from the countless people united against his authoritarian regime,” the group has said in a tweet. “Generations of Tibetans will always resist his dictatorship until Tibet is free.”

The APEC summit will bring together Xi, President Joe Biden and leaders of other countries, including Canada, Japan, South Korea and Australia. Protesters and activists concerned about climate change, trade policy, the Israel-Hamas war and other international issues are planning multiple demonstrations during the summit, which is expected to draw tens of thousands of people to San Francisco, including a large contingent of international media, the report said.

Biden and Xi will meet on Nov 15, the first engagement in a year between the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies. They will hold talks on trade, Taiwan and managing fraught U.S.-Chinese relations.

The sfist.com report cited the Secret Service as saying all protests next week will be relegated to a designated “free speech zone” within the security zone. It cited White House officials as saying the two leaders would meet in the San Francisco Bay area while declining to offer further details because of security concerns.

The report cited Students for a Free Tibet as saying it was organizing a larger protest during APEC on Nov 16, and it was calling on demonstrators to make their voice heard on behalf of “Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hong Kongers, Southern Mongolians, and many other groups — including its own Chinese citizens.”

The action will be called “Rise Up Against Xi: Biggest Unwelcome Protest.”

Biden and Xi last met nearly a year ago on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. In the nearly three-hour meeting, Biden objected directly to China’s “coercive and increasingly aggressive actions” toward Taiwan and discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other issues. Xi stressed that “the Taiwan question is at the very core of China’s core interests, the bedrock of the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed in China-U.S. relations,” the report noted.

San Francisco Police Department Chief Bill Scott has said his department would expect several protests a day while not knowing which ones will materialize where and when. The city respects people’s right to mobilize peacefully but will not tolerate property destruction, violence or any other crime, the AP Nov 10 cited Scott as saying.(TR)