Posted on 08/05/2008 10:04:48 PM PDT by null and void
Chinese police Tuesday apologised for roughing up two Japanese journalists as Beijing's Olympic commitment to allow foreign media freedom came under scrutiny three days before the Games opened.
The apology came after border police "clashed" with the Japanese journalists who had arrived in the Muslim-majority Xinjiang region after an alleged terrorist attack Monday left 16 police dead, Xinhua news agency said.
"The local foreign affairs department made an apology Tuesday to two Japanese reporters," Xinhua said.
A photographer for the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper was forcibly detained late Monday and kicked by police in the city of Kashgar, his employer said.
A reporter for the Nippon Television Network was also detained and treated roughly by Chinese police who pushed his face to the ground, the network said.
"We are planning to make a strong protest," Japanese government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura told reporters.
Kashgar police also entered an AFP photographer's hotel room and forced him to delete photos he had taken of the scene of the attack.
"We strongly protest against the violent detention of a reporter who was reporting by fair means," the Tokyo Shimbun said in a statement.
Its photographer Masami Kawakita, 38, said he was taking photos at the scene when he was grabbed by paramilitary policy and carried into a government facility nearby.
Police at one point held him to the ground, placing a foot on his face pinning his head to the ground, and also kicked him once, before he was released after two hours, he said.
"I don't speak Chinese so I couldn't understand what they were doing or saying. They just made me sit there. I could not make a phone call, it was unbelievable," he said.
Nippon Television Network said its Beijing correspondent, Shinji Katsuta, 37, was held for two hours and then questioned for about an hour at his hotel, describing the incident as "extremely deplorable."
The network has received word that the local police had requested a meeting to apologise for the incident, a spokesman said.
"We heard that the Chinese side pointed out that it is forbidden to film military facilities, and it seems like there was confusion because the scene of the assault was just 50 metres (yards) from a military facility," he said.
The assault came just four days before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, which has drawn thousands of foreign journalists and is being seen as a litmus test of China's willingness to allow greater press freedom.
Jonathan Watts, president of the Foreign Correspondent Club in China (FCCC), condemned the behaviour of the Chinese police.
"The FCCC condemns the recent beating by paramilitary police of two Japanese journalists in Kashgar," he told AFP in Kashgar, where he was reporting on the attack.
"This would be utterly unacceptable at any time. It is particularly reprehensible just days before the Olympics when China had promised complete media openness," he said.
China's foreign ministry did not immediately comment on the handling of the reporters and did not confirm if it had received a formal Japanese protest.
Toe the line or die.
I wouldn’t travel to china for all the tea in bags.
Well, how kind of them.
I wish someone would rough Chinese police.
Chinese police=Stormtroopers
These thugs are the muscle of the commies. They keep the politburo in power and are just as guilty.
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