I first heard about this story from New Media Jim via Twitter. Blogger Noel Hidalgo, also known as Noneck, was in Beijing as an independent journalist and blogger when he came across a protest in Tiananmen Square by a group called Free Tibet 2008.

When he was spotted filming the protest, he found himself shoved up against the wall and detained by Chinese security. Five hours later he was deported, with the flight home credited on his credit card courtesy of the Chinese Police. Here is his video below, which already has over forty thousand views. As you can see, the protest seems pretty tame with some of the other events that have unfolded over there, but apparently, it was enough to make the Chinese police nervous.

I had the chance to speak with Noel about his experiences, particularly the four hours spent with Chinese police officials (the topic of human rights comes up) as well as some rather odd technological glitches that have plagued him since his return. His Facebook and twitter updates have been mysteriously replaced with some cryptic codes.

Some notes before you view:

1) This is raw footage, I was going to play around with it and make it all shiny and new, but I chose to upload the information in a timely manner instead. So apologies in advance for the gritty quality that is iChat.

2) It’s a bit long at just under 13 minutes, but I also wanted to dig deeper into some questions that would not have been addressed by other sources. I think Noel’s story is an excellent highlight of the situation over in China that is getting glossed over in favor of Olympic news, and that’s it’s really important to educate ourselves about the state of human rights in countries all over the world.

If anything, this incident shows me the actual scope of how important it is for China to keep these incidents under wraps- a troubling realization. We’re all on this rock in space together, so we might as well make an effort to make the ride more pleasant for everyone.

Ironically, once again it seems that trying to suppress an issue will in fact, only highlight it. I wonder how many of us would have seen the protest video had Noel NOT been deported?