Hong Kong anti-China Olympic campaigner challenges detention

Nov 21, 2008, 5:55 GMT

Hong Kong - A Hong Kong student taken away by police after unfurling a Tibetan flag during the Olympic torch relay through the city in May launched a legal challenge against her detention on Friday.

Christina Chan, 21, was bundled into a police van and detained for several hours after wrapping her body in the Tibet flag as the Olympic torch was paraded through Hong Kong in May.

She complained bitterly that she had been unfairly detained while police said at the time that they acted to protect her from angry pro-China crowds gathered along the route of the torch.

At a preliminary hearing in Hong Kong's High Court Friday, Chan applied for leave to launch a judicial review of the police decision to detain her and remove her from the scene of the torch relay.

Chan, a part-time model who became a pin-up for many pro-democracy activists following her actions, claims police failed to allow her right to peaceful demonstration and freedom of speech.

The case was adjourned by a High Court judge who ordered Chan to redraft legally inaccurate parts of her submission and to return to court within a week.

The Olympic torch relay in May through Hong Kong brought out patriotic, flag-waving crowds, many of them apparently travelling by bus across the border from China.

It was the first leg of the torch's journey back through China to Beijing after a controversial world tour which saw clashes between police and anti-China demonstrators in Paris and other cities.

The Hong Kong leg saw angry confrontations between groups of pro-China supporters dressed in red and small groups of demonstrators protesting over Beijing's actions in Tibet and calling for full democracy in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong was a British colony for 156 years before reverting to Chinese rule in 1997 under a 'one country, two systems' arrangement guaranteeing freedoms denied elsewhere in China.