Nerd News: Harvard Scholar Detained in Hong Kong

Read the whole story as printed in the Boston Globe. Blurb:

A Harvard scholar and human rights activist who returned to Brookline last August after five years in a Chinese prison was prohibited from re-entering his homeland this week, just days before the opening of the Olympics in Beijing.

Jianli Yang, who was exiled after the deadly pro-democracy demonstrations in Bejing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, was among several dissidents trying to return to a country that is anxiously preparing itself for the eyes of the world. Yang said he was planning to participate in a human rights walk in Hong Kong and visit the mainland province devastated by an earthquake earlier this year, but was detained at the airport in Hong Kong, which will host equestrian events on Saturday.

"I want to challenge the authorities on the issue of the right to return home ... too, too many dissidents now don't have the right to return home,'' Yang told Reuters by telephone.