It would never happen in the US would it?

A heckler from the Falun Gong spiritual movement who disrupted a White House appearance by Chinese President Hu Jintao was charged in federal court on Friday with harassing, intimidating or threatening a foreign official.

Freedom of speech no longer an issue?

Wow -- just read that they are considering persecuting her with a federal charge that carries six months in prison.

Wenyi Wang, 47, a devotee of the Falun Gong movement, was originally booked on a disorderly conduct charge after she crashed Thursday's White House ceremony.

But the U.S. attorney's office later decided to charge her with harassing, intimidating and threatening a foreign official for yelling at Hu that his "days are numbered."

The feds are claming that because her shouts were personally directed at Hu, it wasn't protected speech.

That wasn't the best day the White House ever had. First a government announcer introduced China's national anthem by calling it the national anthem of the Republic of China. In fact, the Republic of China is the name--the formal name of the island of Taiwan, which claims to be an independent nation, a claim that China fiercely disputes.

Wang was a lone protester who happened to find a way to get close enough to Hu to make her voice heard. But as a symbol she was a living, breathing reminder in the middle of a carefully choreographed ceremony that all was not well with China, nor with the US-China relationship. And if the Chinese are as concerned with protocol as media reports suggest, the protester could end up making a real impact on the meeting between the world leaders but most likely she will just be a blip on the radar screen.