Feature Story News Reporter Sam Beattie and AFP’s Francois Bougon spent ten hours with police after interviewing and filming matchmakers in Beijing’s Zhongshan Park. The journalists called the police after four people, including an older woman, grabbed them and demanded they delete footage of the people in the crowd who had not given permission to be filmed. (The four claimed to represent the people in the park.) The reporters showed the woman and other complainants that their images were not recorded. The police tried to find a compromise, and suggested the reporters delete the tape. The reporters declined. At 2:00 a.m., after intervention by a senior police officer and a Foreign Ministry official, the reporters were allowed to depart with the tape.
Police detained a labor rights activist Zhang Zhiru during an interview with Finnish reporter Sami Sillanpaa of Helsingin Sanomat. Two police officers entered the office and demanded Zhang accompany them to the police station. They refused to say why. The police detained Zhang for several hours, during which they asked him the identity of the reporter, what story the reporter was working on, and how the reporter knew about the Labour Dispute Service Center, which helps migrant workers involved in legal disputes with factories. Zhang was warned not to tell the foreigner “unnecessary things.” Zhang was able to meet Sillanpaa later that day. Zhang said police also intervened in March when he and some other labour rights defenders were interviewed by an Australian journalist
Marije Vlaskamp of RTL Dutch Television News was told by police the rule that allows filming in Tiananmen Square without prior permission was ‘changed until further notice.’ She was allowed to do her standup under the Mao portrait after she started to phone the State Council Information Office to get an explanation of the new rules. A plainclothes officer harassed her staff with personal questions about their address, their salary, and employment history.
Police held a reporter from a Japanese broadcaster for two hours after the reporter tried to film an elderly couple in Tiananmen Square ahead of the 17th party congress in Beijing. The couple wanted to petition the government regarding compensation for the imminent demolition of their home next to the new CCTV tower. “They got detained. So did we,” said the reporter. “The [petitioners] were in their 80s but they were detained for 10 days.” The journalist was held for two hours and freed after she showed there was nothing sensitive on the tapes in the camera. While the elderly couple were in detention, their home was destroyed.
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China welcomes the release of Zhao Yan, a researcher for the New York Times, after his completion of a three-year prison sentence. We call upon the authorities to fully re-instate Zhao Yan’s legal rights.
The FCCC remains concerned about the lack of transparency and due process that led to Zhao being held for more than a year on suspicion of divulging state secrets before finally being sentenced on a completely different charge of fraud. We urge the government to make public the full legal proceedings.
Zhao Yan’s prison sentence, and the conviction of Ching Cheong of the Straits Times on espionage charges, have alarmed many foreign correspondents and raised questions about China’s commitment to greater media openness ahead of the Olympics.
Zhao’s case has highlighted the problem of harassment and intimidation of journalists in China. We hope his release will mark the beginning of the end for such practices, which are not in keeping with China’s aspirations, nor with the world’s expectations of an Olympic host.
As a first step, we urge the Chinese government to bring its state secrets and national security legislation in line with practices endorsed by the United Nations, and to make public the legal proceedings which led to Ching Cheong’s conviction.
We hope Zhao’s return to family and work will be unhindered, and that the circumstances behind his three-year imprisonment will be made public in a transparent way.
