How lobbyist spent her summer vacation dangling over Beijing

Nicole Rycroft's day job is as executive director of Markets Initiative, the environmental organization aimed at ending use of old-growth timber for paper products, including magazines. In her spare time, she apparently enjoys ticking off autocratic governments halfway round the world.

The Tyee publishes a story about how Rycroft spent her summer vacation, unfurling a Free Tibet banner in downtown Beijing in front of state television agency, a place most calculated to discombobulate the Chinese authorities. That's her dangling on the right of the banner.

"There were three of us that climbed up the scaffolding. It took less than five minutes to get up and hang the banner. Then I rappelled down the front, as did Phil Kirk. Kelly Osbourne stayed at the top to protect our anchors, to make sure we were not cut down like what happened in San Francisco.And we basically just hung out for 20 minutes or so. It was a great view."

She and three others were arrested and hustled into a police van.

"We went into this expecting that we would probably be kept for at least three days. But apparently the Chinese government has been working with a U.S.-based crisis management advisor, and now they are moving people out very quickly.

"After questioning, I was taken to another police station. I sat there and watched the Olympics on TV with my six guards. Then I was taken to the airport and handed over to immigration police, who escorted me onto a plane home.

"I was arrested at seven in the morning and I was on a 4:20 p.m. flight to Vancouver."