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LONDON — A protester hurled abuse and then a shoe at China's premier Monday while he delivered a speech on the global economy at Cambridge University.
The protester leapt up from his seat near the back of a crowded auditorium, blew a whistle and yelled that Premier Wen Jiabao was a "dictator" before throwing the shoe toward the stage.
"How can this university prostitute itself with this dictator here, how can you listen...to him unchallenged," the man shouted.
Like the now-famous incident when an Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at former President George W. Bush in December, the gray athletic shoe missed its intended target.
China's media were silent on the Wen protest Tuesday, even though news organizations were quick to report the incident involving Bush.
Unlike Bush, Wen, who was standing on a stage behind a podium, did not need to duck. He merely paused for a few seconds before he continued with his speech. One of his aides quietly stepped on to the stage, picked up the shoe and took it away.
Security staff escorted the protester out of the auditorium. He was arrested and taken to a police station for questioning on suspicion of committing a public order offense, said police spokeswoman Shelly Spratt.
"The university is a place for discussion, debate and considered argument, not for shoe throwing," said Tim Holt, a university spokesman.
The shoe-throwing incident came at the end of a three-day visit to Britain dogged by demonstrations over human rights and Chinese policy in Tibet. Security was tight at the university and police kept a group of about 20 demonstrators away from the Chinese leader when he arrived for his speech.
Shoe throwing has become a globally recognized form of protest since the case involving Bush. Iraqi reporter Muntadhar al-Zeidi was scheduled to face trial in December on a charge of assaulting a foreign leader, but the court date was postponed after his attorney filed a motion to reduce the charges. He remains in custody in Baghdad.
In China, state-run newspapers and Web sites carried stories Tuesday on Wen's speech but had no reference to the shoe-throwing. Content mentioning it on Internet forums also appears to have been deleted.
The official Xinhua News Agency issued a story saying that Britain apologized for an incident and that China had "expressed its strong feelings against the occurrence of the incident." However, it did not say what the incident was.
China's state-run CCTV network reported Foreign Ministry comments, which acknowledged a "disturbance" during the speech, but made no mention a shoe had been thrown at Wen.
China keeps a tight grip over the Internet, blocking any content deemed as a challenge or insulting to the ruling Communist Party or the country's leaders.
