LOCATION: Tiananmen Square
TYPE OF INCIDENT: Barred from public space
TOPIC: Tiananmen anniversary
NATIONALITY/ORGANIZATION: International Broadcaster
DESCRIPTION: Our TV crew was stopped at security and not allowed to enter Tiananmen Square to film. We were told there was a new regulation. The crew asked to see it, but the authorities declined. When the crew asked if it could film the Square from across the street, security asked for the crew’s passports. One member wasn’t carrying a passport, so the crew was sent away.
LOCATION: Beijing
TYPE OF INCIDENT: Detention, Sources Harassed,
TOPIC: Tiananmen anniversary
NATIONALITY/ORGANIZATION: TV Broadcaster
We drove around the block and passed the same spot and saw that all the students we had interviewed were being questioned.
DESCRIPTION: In the morning we went to interview students in front Beida University. Seven minutes after we started five police cars arrived and surrounded us. Being intimidated and before they even could asked us anything we were able to leave the spot in our taxi, while being filmed. We drove around the block and passed the same spot and saw that all the students we had interviewed were being questioned. Two unofficial cars followed us for half an hour. They lost us in the heavy traffic. In the afternoon when we were leaving the compound where we interviewed three Tiananmen Mothers in their home (they are 24/24 shadowed by policemen in plain clothes) we were intercepted by a group of 10 policemen, uniformed and plainclothes. We were filmed and they asked us to show us documents and passports. As the cameraman could not produce his passport we were taken away to a local office and questioned for two hours before we could leave. The next day police came to my apartment– 23 hours later– to check documents and my and my family’s passports. When everything was ok they left.
LOCATION: Tiananmen Square
TYPE OF INCIDENT: Barred from public space
TOPIC: Tiananmen anniversary
NATIONALITY/ORGANIZATION: Italian TV
The authorities asked us to go with them to “an office close to the square” to apply to film in Tiananmen. I explained that I saw no reason since we are accredited journalists. He replied that “new rules” were introduced in the beginning of 2009. I replied that this was impossible since I had shot in Tiananmen several times previously this year.
DESCRIPTION: I got to Tiananmen square with a colleague another TV station. We were supposed to shoot stand-ups for each other for our report about the 20th anniversary of the massacre. When we first entered the square with our equipment nobody stopping us. As soon we came out from the tunnel, a plainclothes policeman (he showed us his ID) in his 20s rushed to us to check our press cards and invited us to return to the tunnel again to check our papers. We followed him. My colleague invented a story and explained in Chinese that he was reporting about green cars in China and I was with him to shoot a piece for the report. He let us go after 20 minutes.
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LOCATION: Tiananmen Square, Beijing
TYPE OF INCIDENT: Detention, plainclothes obstruction, bureaucratic interference
TOPIC: Tiananmen anniversary
NATIONALITY/ORGANIZATION: International broadcaster. American reporter, German cameraman, Chinese producer
“This is the first time I’ve had a chorus of 30 plain clothes officers say they saw something that didn’t happen. That means they can frame foreign journalists for doing things we didn’t do.”
Description:
I planned to do a stand-up in Tiananmen Square. It should’ve taken a maximum of ten minutes. We tried to play by the rules. Three hours later we were sent home from the police station, without the stand-up, having been falsely accused of creating an incident.
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LOCATION: Tiananmen Square
TYPE OF INCIDENT: Barred from public space
TOPIC: Tiananmen anniversary
NATIONALITY/ORGANIZATION: TV Broadcaster
DESCRIPTION: We went to Tiananmen Square and got through the cordon. After we set up our camera a policeman ran after us and told us we had to register at the Tiananmen office. We went to the office but it was closed. I could see that he wasn’t going to let us film, so we filmed across the road, and had the Square in the background.
