James Powderly of Graffiti Research Labs Detained In China

An anonymous reader writes "News from Free Tibet 2008 that internationally known artist, technologist and co-founder of the Graffiti Research Lab, James Powderly, was detained in Beijing early on August 19th while preparing to debut a new work and technology of protest, the L.A.S.E.R. Stencil. According to a Twitter message received yesterday by Students for a Free Tibet at approximately 5 pm Beijing Standard Time, Powderly had been detained by Chinese authorities at 3 am. His current whereabouts remain unknown. Powderly was the inventor of throwies." (Powderly's detention was also mentioned at Make Magazine's blog.)

It's China. This is no surprise.

[Caraig]

Anyone else think that China's human rights record doesn't affect them just because they're not Chinese citizens?

Consider him lucky if we hear from and about him ever again.

(Granted, going to China for the express purpose of protesting is going to get you in hot water with the Chinese authorities, but is that the sign of a healthy society?)

Well then

[prelelat]

I'm sure he knew what might happen when he decided to protest in China about Tibet. I commend him for that, it might get some attention to people around the world to his cause. I think he either had to have had some seriouse balls or have been a little nieve to think of what would happen if he was detained by athorities. I don't think hes a dumb man he knew what he was doing and he knew what would probably happen.

Hopefully they just ship him home after a couple days or weeks and this doesn't get too ugly for him.

On another note "I know hippies. I've hated them all my life. I've kept this town free of hippies on my own since I was five and a half. But I can't contain them on my own anymore. We have to do something, fast!" hehe China is Cartman

Re:Rosa Parks

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Powderly is not Tibetan, not a resident of China, a foreigner who traveled to China for the express purpose of making this protest, and achieved nothing in this protest. Powderly and his protest is nothing like Park's protest.

And I'M BadAnalogyGuy?!

Re:idiot

[__aagmrb7289]

That's pretty disingenuous. Writing propaganda these days? "Arrest people who make signs with simple blinking LEDs"? Interesting description. Would you have a problem if I ran up to your house and poured pig's blood all over your porch? Why not? It's easy to clean up! "many people in the USA have been arrested for pointing lasers skyward as well"? Oh, you mean the couple of people who were attempting to shine laser lights in the eyes of pilots of commercial aircraft, and readily admitted to it? If I shone a laser in your eye while you were driving, would that bother you? Do you think someone should be arrested for possibly f*cking up your vision for the rest of your life? How about when that process might end up killing you, and any number of your passengers? I've heard b.s. "we are so bad we shouldn't criticize anyone else" and "Nazi Imperialist U.S.A." before - but I have to say - good job! If this post were a joke, I'd be very impressed. It's unfortunate that you probably mean it. Have you ever noticed that lying for your cause doesn't actually help it in the long run? Let's fix problems honestly, shall we?

Re:Current whereabouts?

[eln]

He's an American citizen being detained during the Olympic Games. He's not going to disappear. They'll question him for several hours, probably including sleep deprivation and a lot of yelling, and then kick him out of the country. There was another guy earlier on in the Olympics that got detained for trying to protest, and that's pretty much what happened to him.

The Chinese are trying to look good in front of the world, "disappearing" a foreign national, especially an American, during the Olympics would not be in line with that goal.

Re:What is a L.A.S.E.R Stencil??

[againjj]

From TFA:

The work, "The Green Chinese Lantern," uses a 400 milliwatt handheld green laser with micro-stencils to beam simple messages and images up to three stories high on surfaces such as billboards, buildings, and bridges. The Laser Stencil technology was developed in conjunction with Students for a Free Tibet.

[...] For more information and high-resolution photos of the work, please visit http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?p=161 [graffitiresearchlab.com]

Re:Rosa Parks

[Adrian Lopez]

"Hopefully this event teaches him, and and others in his home country to appreciate the freedom that they have when they're spewing their typical 'baby out with the bathwater' rants about how fascist the US government is."

By your logic, practically nobody in the world is in a position to complain about their situation, for you'll nearly always be able to find somebody who is worse off than you are. Keeping quiet about abuses at home because other, worse abuses are taking place elsewhere is hardly a reasonable thing to demand of another. Please keep your jingoism to yourself.

Re:idiot

[b0bby]

Actually, they were "were charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct and placing a hoax device in a way that causes panic" according to Boston.com, and the charges were later dropped. Which is still a stupid overreaction, but not the same as charging them with "terrorism".

Re:So many ways to make a point

[good soldier svejk]

DDT isn't banned for Malaria control in Africa. It is banned outright in the US. And it is banned for agricultural uses worldwide under the Stockholm Convention, [wikipedia.org] but there is no limitation on African nations using it for Malaria control. Also we didn't ban DDT because it got on our apples. We banned it because it killed off fish and bird populations. South Africa uses DDT [bbc.co.uk] although the environmental effects make it controversial.