SICHUAN PROVINCE: TV CREW TURNED BACK ON WAY TO TIBETAN AREA

MAR. 19, 2008-- Police at a roadblock five hours’ drive southwest of Chengdu ordered a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's television crew to return to Chengdu and "not venture out of the city."  The three-member TV crew was trying to reach Tibetan areas.  "The police officers who manned the roadblock on the only road leading to the area were polite but firm. They said no foreigner was allowed into the area because of concerns for their safety," said CBC Bureau Chief Michel Cormier.

SICHUAN PROVINCE: POLICE STOP TV CREW FROM TRAVELLING TO TIBETAN AREA IN ABA

MAR. 18. 2008-- Police stopped a three-person CNN TV crew led by reporter Jon Vause at a police checkpoint about 300  kilometres from Aba, their intended destination and the origin of reports alleging multiple Tibetan shooting victims. Police told the journalists to step out of the car, took their photos, and wrote down details from their passports. The police acted firmly but politely, and asked the crew to turn around.

TONGREN, QINGHAI PROVINCE AND XIAHE, GANSU PROVINCE -- REPORTER MADE TO LEAVE TIBETAN AREAS

MAR. 17, 2008-- Five policemen entered a hotel room where a
Kyodo News reporter was staying at around 1:30 a.m. and demanded to see his identification papers. Local foreign affairs officials later told the reporter to leave the area because it was "dangerous." Later that same day near Xiahe, Gansu Province, police stopped the same reporter when he tried to reach an area where demonstrations  were taking place. He was told to leave; police vehicles escorted his car until he left the province.

XIAHE, GANSU PROVINCE: POLICE DETAIN TV CREW, THREATEN TO CONFISCATE TV FOOTAGE

MAR. 17, 2008-- Police detained a Finnish Broadcasting Co.
correspondent and cameraman outside the monastery town of
Xiahe and threatened to confiscate their footage. The team
arrived in Xiahe on March 15, and was trying to leave when
law enforcement officers brought them to the police
station. The police insisted they had a right to view the
correspondents' footage because the reporters had been in
a forbidden area during a police operation. The police
said they would confiscate any sensitive material. "We
declined to show the footage and said that Prime Minister
Wen Jiabao has said that foreign journalists have the
right to report freely. They said 'You don't want to know
what will happen if you don't show us the footage," said
correspondent Katri Makkonen. The journalists showed the
police one tape. After 90 minutes, the reporters left with
the tape they showed to the police as well as the ones
they managed to hide.

LINXIA, GANSU PROVINCE: POLICE TURN AWAY REPORTER DUE TO "POLICE ACTION"

Mar. 17, 2008-- Police turned back a reporter from
Britain's The Guardian after he drove over a mountain pass
to enter an area where protests had taken place near the
border between Sichuan and Gansu. Reporter Jonathan Watts
said an English-speaking officer told him "There is a
police action taking place. Foreigners are not allowed
inside. These are the orders of high authority." He said a
Foreign Ministry official told a colleague: "When there is
some emergency, the local authority has the power to set
up prohibited areas for outsiders. This is for the
stability and unity of that province and this country."

LANZHOU, GANSU PROVINCE: POLICE BLOCK CREW EN ROUTE TO XIAHE, THREATEN DRIVER WITH ARREST

MAR. 16, 2008-- Police stopped Belgian Public Broadcaster's (VRT)
correspondent, cameraman, assistant and Chinese driver at a roadblock on the way from Lanzhou to Xiahe. Police told the reporting team to show their ID's and press cards and questioned them. The journalists were told they couldn't travel further because there was a police operation going on, and they were being stopped for their     own security. When the correspondent showed the police and local foreign affairs officer the new foreign media reporting rules, he was  told that the regulations weren't valid due to the police operation.
The police threatened the driver with arrest if he continued with
the crew. Correspondent Tom van de Weghe asked the police what
would happen if he were to continue by foot. "We will arrest you     and put you on an airplane," replied the police. The crew left the     road block after about two hours, drove five hours and spent the night in Xining, Qinghai Province.
During the night the police called the  Chinese driver many times
to ask to which locations he had driven the team. The crew experienced problems sending the reports to Belgium because of restricted internet access.

XIAHE, GANSU PROVINCE: TV TEAM TURNED AWAY DUE TO "TROUBLE AHEAD"

MAR. 16, 2008-- Police stopped correspondents from
Britain's ITV News at a toll both an hour
outside of the monastery town Xiahe, took details from
their passports, and told them to leave. A plainclothes
policeman filmed the reporters. Authorities also recorded
the driver's license and license plate of the Lanzhou taxi
driver, who "was terrified," said ITV correspondent John
Ray. " The only explanation we were given was there was
'trouble ahead'. When we pressed them, we were told the
road was damaged." On their way back to Lanzhou the
journalists were pulled over at another toll booth and
once again asked for their passports. "No explanation was
offered; nor could they reconcile the road block with the
Olympic regulations concerning foreign journalists," said
Ray. ``We tried to film them, but were shooed away.''
After returning to Beijing, the ITV journalists were
manhandled off a university campus where Tibetan students
were holding a candlelit vigil, and people they believe to
be plainclothes police photographed them.

CHENGDU, SICHUAN PROVINCE: POLICE BAR FILMING IN TIBETAN NEIGHBORHOOD

MAR. 16, 2008-- Police barred a television crew from ABC
News of the U.S. from filming in a Tibetan neighborhood.
When the reporters informed police of the Olympic rule
allowing foreign reporters to travel and interview anyone
who consents, Stephanie Sy says police "simply shrugged
and hailed us a taxi."

XIAHE, GANSU PROVINCE: POLICE TURN AWAY, TAIL REPORTER

MAR. 16, 2008-- Police turned back a correspondent for
U.S. National Public Radio who was seeking to reach Xiahe.
The correspondent was first stopped at a checkpoint about
50 kilometers outside of Lanzhou. The reporter took a back
road, and was turned back again at a checkpoint 20
kilometers outside of Xiahe. Louisa Lim's car was followed
by a police car for about 100 kilometers. Then a black
sedan tailed her for about 300 kilometers, until she had
almost reached the airport.

XIAHE, GANSU PROVINCE: U.S. DOCUMENTARY CREW KEPT UNDER SURVEILLANCE, BARRED FROM FILMING

MAR. 13-15, 2008 - Authorities barred a U.S. film crew from using e-mail or leaving its hotel, and abruptly terminated its plans to continue filming at Labrang Monastery.  Authorities also ordered the eight-member crew not to talk about the police in riot gear and soldiers it saw headed toward Labrang monastery, one day before news broke of riots in Lhasa on March 14.  The crew had been at the monastery for two days filming a documentary on Tibetan culture for a six-part series titled "Change in China."   On the afternoon of March 13, sound man Spence Palermo says he passed a half dozen local police in riot gear headed towards the monastery. "On their heels were two separate columns of about two dozen Chinese soldiers each, also decked out in shielded helmets and night sticks. "  At dinner authorities informed crew members they would not be allowed to film the monastery the following day as planned.  Instead, they filmed a monastery of the “Ben sect” about 40 miles outside of Xiahe. On the night of March 14, they were individually escorted to their rooms and told they wouldn't be allowed to leave their rooms until the next morning. The next morning, Palermo heard a commotion outside the hotel and saw a convoy of Chinese military trucks:  "I figured over 400 soldiers were headed to the monastery.  Suddenly there was a pounding on the door and a very irate and panicky official started grabbing my gear and hustling me down to the lobby, saying that we had to leave ‘immediately.’   We were led out of town."   After the crew filmed at an ancient fort, its members were told they would not be allowed to return to Xiahe.  Instead, their Chinese assistant went to the hotel to pick up their equipment and luggage.  "Apparently the protests had spread through the whole town and our hotel – state-run of course -- had been targeted [and] all of the windows smashed out,” Palermo recalls, “[There were] fires burning on the street. The word was that under no circumstances would Western media be allowed anywhere near the town."

THUGS INTERFERE WITH GERMAN TV CREW IN SHANDONG, THROW STONES

JAN. 24, 2008 -- Six to seven plainclothes thugs prevented a four-person ARD TV team from approaching the home of Yuan Weijing in a Shandong province village. It was the second attempt in two weeks by Germany's ARD to talk with Yuan, wife of imprisoned blind human-rights activist Chen Guangcheng. During the first attempt,  police had arrested Yuan's brother shortly before the team arrived. In the more recent incident, two of the thugs had stones in their hands and threatened the journalists. During the brawl that ensued, the cameraman fell to the ground. One of the thugs hit the camera with a stone, but didn`t destroy it. The team was not beaten but the journalists were threatened, insists ARD correspondent Jochen Gräbert. Although nobody was injured, he says, "these guys were like fighting robots. It was a dangerous situation." After the team retreated to the outskirts of the village, Yuan came out of her house but was prevented from speaking to the media.

BEIJING: DETAINED TV CREW ORDERED TO SHOW FOOTAGE, SIGN CONFESSION
 
January 14, 2008 -- Police detained four Scandinavian television correspondents for two hours after denying them an interview with blogger Zeng Jinyan about the detention of her husband, HIV/AIDS activist Hu Jia, in late December. The reporters represented three Scandinavian TV stations. Police blocked the reporters from entering Zeng's apartment building, then detained them because one of the team members, Jan Larsen of Denmark's DR TV, was not carrying his passport.   The police and the property owner demanded to see the journalists' video recording to make sure the crew had not filmed inside the compound.  The police threatened to confiscate the camera, and initially refused to return Larsen's press card until he rolled his tape.  After Larsen phoned the Danish Embassy, police told him to write a confession for not carrying his passport, but dropped the demand that he show his footage.   Another correspondent showed the property owner and authorities his footage to demonstrate he had not filmed inside the complex.  After departing the police station, the journalists were able to talk with Zeng, who was in her fourth-floor apartment, by shouting to her from outside of the compound.  At the time of the incident, authorities were holding Hu Jia at an unknown detention center on suspicion of “incitement to subvert state power.”

SHANGHAI: JOURNALISTS HELD FOR ONE HOUR COVERING ANTI-MAGLEV PROTEST 

JAN. 12, 2008 -- Shanghai Police held Ola Wong of the Swedish daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet and a Canadian freelance photographer for one hour while they were covering protestors in Shanghai's People's Square who oppose plans for a magnetic-levitation train project.  Hundreds of Shanghai residents turned out to demonstrate against a plan to extend the existing maglev train line to the city center over concerns that it would emit electromagnetic radiation and pose a health hazard.   Wong said police took the journalists away from the reporting scene to a nearby police station, allegedly for doing 'illegal reporting.'  “Their pretext was that I didn't bring my passport with me.  We were released after one hour. The photographer got a shove in the back from one police officer but other than that they behaved ok.

DONGZHOU, GUANGDONG PROVINCE: LOCAL OFFICIALS ASSERT THEY CAN BAR REPORTERS ON SECURITY CONCERNS

DEC. 26, 2007-- Plainclothes personnel riding in a marked police vehicle detained AP correspondent Bill Foreman, and authorities escorted him out of the village of Dongzhou in southern Guangdong province. He went there to confirm reports of renewed protests in the village where two years ago three men were shot and killed in demonstrations against government land acquisition.  At the time, residents said the government gave them inadequate compensation for land taken to build an electric power plant. In December 2007, Radio Free Asia reported that about 1,000 riot police fired tear gas at protesters in Dongzhou.  Residents were reluctant to speak about the protests to a foreign correspondent.   Foreman said while he was walking down a narrow side street lined with shops, four plainclothes officers in a marked police car grabbed him by the arm and put him in the car without saying what he had done wrong. At the police station, after 30 minutes, a vice director of the propaganda department of the local communist party committee showed up. He wanted to see Foreman's passport and press card. He also wanted to know to whom he had talked and what they said. (Foreman said he couldn't understand anyone because they spoke in dialect).  Foreman brought up the new media guidelines, and the official said the law allows local governments to declare that certain places are off limits because of security concerns.  Another official said reporters would probably be allowed to return to Dongzhou by February.  After an hour, the authorities drove him to the closest big city, Shanwei, about a half hour away and checked him into a hotel.

HEBEI: REPORTER BEATEN, TAPE DESTROYED IN LAND DISPUTE VILLAGE

NOV. 20, 2007 --Swiss TV correspondent Barbara Luthi and her cameraman and local   assistant were roughed up and detained for seven hours in Shengyou Village, Dingzhou County, Hebei Province.  One of their tapes was erased by the authorities.  The Swiss TV team had been interviewing villagers at the site of a land dispute that in 2005 resulted in a pitched battle that claimed six lives.  "I have been interrogated by police before, but this was on a whole different scale," said Luthi. "It is the first time I have been physically beaten." She said six cars drove up containing ten to12 men, who claimed to be local villagers. She believes they were plainclothes police. Two of the cars did not have number plates.  She says the men were "quite brutal."  They twisted her arm, and grabbed a camera and bags.  In the struggle, Luthi fell to the ground.  The issue was eventually resolved when the plainclothes men called the local foreign affairs bureau. 

WUHAN: PHOTOGRAPHERS DETAINED FOR THREE HOURS 

NOV. 20, 2007-- Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer, Swiss photographers were detained for three hours in Wuchang, the southern area of Wuhan. Uniformed police detained the phogographers shortly after residents started describing how they had been beaten up and threatened in a dispute over property. It was the third time the couple have been detained during their travels around China. They said it was the most unpleasant experience. 
"They were much rougher in the way they treated us," said Braschler. "After two hours, we said we are just going to leave. Then the chief  of police came. He was very unfriendly and threatened to detain us for 12 hours if we didn’t go back to the police station. He seriously threatened us. The (police) said we couldn’t go until they checked us.” Eventually someone from the police foreign affairs department arrived, and invited the photographers to lunch to clarify the situation. “We said no.Then they got tough again. They said they wanted to check all our film, carmeras and notebook. I said two options - either we are free so we can go. Or we are arrested so we call the Swiss Embassy. Eventually they let us go," said Braschler. 
 

ANHUI: SOURCE, REPORTERS DETAINED AFTER INTERVIEW WITH YOUNG FARM GIRL

NOV. 9, 2007--  An Al-Jazeera television team was detained in a village in Anhui province, about an hour outside of Hefei.  Melissa Chan says the team had been interviewing a young farm girl for a “very benign story on the life of a little girl.”  She says local officials stopped the team and “insisted we ‘lunch’ with them.”  The reporters said they had to get a plane back to Beijing.  The officials persisted, and brought the Al-Jazeera team in for “a cup of tea.”  Chan reports:  “Tea dragged on for an hour, and then we discovered they had dragged the farmer we had spoken to, to the police station.  The situation escalated, with us insisting they let him go before we leave.  We then told them we’d go to the police station ourselves, at which point officials locked the gates so we could not leave the premises.”  The team was detained for about three hours, with no explanation.  When the correspondents showed the officials a copy of the reporting regulations, the officials said they were aware of the new rules.  Chan says the Al-Jazeera team ended up calling the Foreign Ministry in Beijing for help and, “to their credit”, officials there made the relevant calls to get the team released. 

BEIJING: POLICE OBSTRUCT PHOTOGRAPHER, INSIST ON SEEING TEMPORARY RESIDENCE REGISTRATION DOCUMENT

OCT. 17, 2007-- Authorities blocked AP photographer Greg Baker from photographing Beijing Christian activist Hua Huiqi because he was not carrying his temporary residence registration form. Baker was seeking to enter a courtyard home to photograph Hua Huiqi, who had been beaten. When Baker argued he had all the legally required documentation with him, and that he could not have gotten his visa without having first registered his residence with police, he was told he "had to prove" he had registered. 

BEIJING: BUREAUCRATIC HARASSMENT IN HOSPITAL EMERGENCY WARD

OCT. 12, 2007-- Immigration police pulled two reporters away from the emergency ward at Tiantan hospital where they were reporting on the beating of Christian activist Hua Huiqi. At the time, Hua Huiqi was unconscious; it seemed he was being denied treatment. The police were polite, but spent half an hour examining passports and press cards, and lecturing the reporters on a rule about carrying their police residence registration. "They knew they couldn't stop us from doing what we were doing. It seemed designed to take the journalist away from the story," said South China Morning Post reporter Didi Kirsten Tatlow.

BEIJING: POLICE TRACK JOURNALISTS FROM FENGTAI TO TIANANMEN, BAR FILMING IN PUBLIC AREAS

OCT. 11, 2007-- Finnish Broadcasting Co. correspondent Katri Makkonen and a colleague were blocked by authorities from filming petitioners in Fengtai, and then barred from filming in Tiananmen Square. Authorities originally said the reporters were allowed to film the Fengtai petitioner area as long as they avoided the hutong next to the courthouse. But other police continued to block their camera. After the journalists left, police phoned their taxi driver to find out where they were headed next. When they arrived in Tiananmen Square the journalists were approached by police who said they'd been instructed to look for the "Finnish journalists". The journalists were told they are not allowed to film in Tiananmen Square, and were warned they could be threatened or harmed in the square. At both locations authorities repeatedly asked for their passports and press cards, and spent about 15 minutes taking down details. "It was obvious that the police knew that they couldn't detain us but still tried in every way to stop us from working. It was pretty amazing that they tracked down the cab driver and then even alerted the police on Tiananmen," said Makkonen. The previous day her cameraman had been turned away from Fengtai because he was allegedly blocking traffic.

URUMUQI: PHOTOGRAPHERS DETAINED

OCT. 4, 2007-- Swiss photographers Monika Fischer and Mathias Braschler were detained for five hours after photographing a uniformed man they saw walking along a railway track. The man gave his permission to be photographed. The police said the photographers were not supposed to be on the tracks. The police checked their cameras and asked to see all of their receipts for hotels, food and road tolls since entering Xinjiang. They released the photographers with a warning to "be careful" around Uighur people.  

BEIJING: TWO JOURNALISTS DETAINED FOR FILMING MATCHMAKERS IN PARK

SEPT. 30, 2007-- 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.

SHENZHEN: LABOR RIGHTS ACTIVIST DETAINED IN MIDST OF INTERVIEW IN GUANGDONG PROVINCE

SEPT. 29, 2007-- 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  

BEIJING: INTERFERENCE IN TIANANMEN SQUARE

SEPT. 28, 2007-- 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.

BEIJING: TV TEAM ROUGHED UP, CAMERA DAMAGED BY THUGS

SEPT. 14, 2007-- A reporting team from Britain's Channel 4 was assaulted by thugs, and then detained by police following interviews with petitioner "inmates" at an illegal detention center in the outskirts of Beijing.  The center is operated out of the Nanyang City government of Henan’s Beijing liason office. The thugs damaged the journalists' camera and tried to destroy their footage.   The reporters called the police, who stopped the violence but did not follow through when the reporters tried to press charges of assault. The police told the reporters they couldn't leave until they signed a confession admitting they’d illegally entered a government office.  The reporters said they were not aware they had been filming in a government office. The journalists said a woman at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said she could not assist their release.   The two visiting reporters, Andrew Carter and Aidan Hartley, were detained for six hours.  They were released after destroying a tape. Their Chinese fixer, Dean Peng was detained for 10 hours.  Police issued an official warning to Peng accusing him of disturbing “administrative order” in the government liason office.   Peng  is seeking to cancel the warning on the grounds that the journalists’ reporting  was conducted legally.  He has appealed the case to the Fengtai district court 

HEBEI: TWO JOURNALISTS DETAINED REPORTING ON FORCED EVICTION OF FARMERS 

SEPT. 12, 2007-- Reporter Robert Saiget and photographer Goh Chai Hin of Agence France-Presse were detained for nearly five hours in Shengyou Village, Dingzhou County, Hebei Province, where they were confirming reports of an August 28th clash between police and villagers.  The violence followed the reported recent death of a local farmer from injuries suffered in June 2005, when hundreds of armed thugs killed six and injured 51 farmers while seeking to evict them from their land to make way for a power plant.  Local police accused the AFP journalists of illegal reporting and demanded the names of their contacts in the village. The journalists were released after they showed the local Foreign Affairs officials a copy of the new Olympic reporting rules.

BEIJING: REPORTER TACKLED AND KICKED BY THUGS AT ILLICIT DETENTION CENTER  

SEPT. 10, 2007--   Reuters correspondent Chris Buckley was tackled to the ground, kicked in the back, and punched by more than a dozen thugs while investigating a claim about an illicit detention center in Beijing for petitioners coming to the capital to air grievances.  Buckley was attacked while leaving the center, located at the Beijing liason office of Nanyang City, Henan Province.  The thugs took his bag with notes, a mobile phone and camera.  They pinned him to a chair.  One man added to the tension by threatening to kill the reporter.  Buckley’s attackers then called the police.  He was only allowed to make phone calls after a senior officer arrived.  Once Buckley could phone the Foreign Ministry, its staff were prompt and helpful. After that call, the senior police officer returned Buckley’s  possessions and recorded his official complaint.  He has heard of no police follow-up to prosecute his assailants.   

ONE SOURCE BEATEN, TWO INTIMIDATED IN SEPARATE INCIDENTS

SEPT.--  A European broadcaster reported three incidents of intimidation of sources. One source was beaten;two were threatened. The broadcaster said none of the sources were discussing "very sensitive" issues. 

XINJIANG: REPORTER INTERROGATED, SEARCHED, SOURCES INTIMIDATED 

AUG. 2007— During a reporting trip to Xinjiang, the Muslim Uighur region in China’s far west, reporter Brice Pedroletti of France’s Le Monde newspaper was followed and searched, and his sources were intimidated.   Pedroletti visited the apartment of the daughter of exiled human rights advocate Rebiya Kadeer.  The family told him it was not “convenient” to talk.  Two days later three plainclothes officers took Pedroletti to a backroom at his hotel and interrgated him for 45 minutes before he rushed off to catch a flight.   He was frequently followed during his seven-day trip to Kashgar and surrounding counties, where he was investigating claims of abuses of teenage Uighur girls sent to work in factories in eastern China.   One source told Pedroletti he was questioned for two hours the day after speaking to the foreign reporter in his shop.  Pedroletti said a family he visited was questioned after he left by men in a car that was shadowing him. Before crossing the Kirghizstan border police searched Pedroletti’s bag and examined his photographs.  “The constant surveillance prevented me from hiring a good interpreter and freely reporting,” said Pedroletti.  “Sources were scared to talk to me, and I did not want to put them in danger.”

TIBET:  INTERVIEWS INTERRUPTED, JOURNALISTS ORDERED TO WRITE SELF-CENSORSHIP PLEDGE

AUG. 2007--  A European documentary team-- which the government had granted permission to report in Tibet-- was repeatedly harassed by local authorities during its visit there. Authorities interrupted two interviews, once because the Tibetan language  was used, and once because authorities appeared concerned the interviewee would say something critical about life in Tibet.  In some locations, authorities withdrew previously granted permission to film due to “safety” concerns.  Authorities also asked the team to erase footage, which the team refused to do.  When the team reached the border with Nepal, an accompanying foreign affairs official from Bejing said if the team did not sign a pledge about how it would use its footage,  it would have to return to Lhasa to submit its film to censorship authorities.   The team felt it had no choice but to sign a document saying its reporting material would "never be used to deliberately uglify Tibet and China... (or)... be used to depict any prostitution, environmental, sanitation, and public dissatisfaction problems."   
 

BEIJING: SEVEN JOURNALISTS HELD ONE HOUR AFTER INTERVIEW WITH WIFE OF BLIND ACTIVIST CHEN GUANGCHENG

Aug. 24, 2007-- Seven journalists from three media outlets, including Hong Kong's Cable TV, were held for one hour after interviewing Yuan Weijing, the wife of blind activist Chen Guangcheng. The reporters were stopped by about seven police officers as they left the home of activist Hu Jia, where the interview had taken place. The police recorded their passport and press card details before allowing them to depart. The delay prevented the reporters from accompanying Yuan to the airport. The police said they were responding to a complaint by Hu Jia's neighbor that a number of foreigners were conducting interviews in the compound.

JIANGSU: REPORTERS HARASSED OUTSIDE COURTHOUSE IN YIXING

AUG. 10, 2007-- Reporters from the South China Morning Post and the New York Times were turned away from Yixing court where they planned to cover the trial of environmental activist Wu Lihong. Outside the courthouse, three people believed to be plainclothes police officers photographed and verbally harassed the reporters. One of the three searched one of the journalists' bags when the journalist stepped away, in apparent violation of Constitutional protection of privacy. 

BEIJING: POLICE DETAIN A DOZEN FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS FOLLOWING NEWS CONFERENCE ON MEDIA FREEDOM IN CHINA ONE YEAR AHEAD OF THE OLYMPICS

AUG. 6, 2007-- Police prevented around a dozen foreign reporters from leaving the site of a news conference on media freedom in China and a subsequent event staged by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Some reporters were detained for about 90 minutes. One reporter was shoved around. One call to the Foreign Ministry went unanswered. Another call was answered, but the police officer refused to speak to ministry officials. Police asked reporters why they attended, who informed them of the event, and what was the purpose of handcuffs in a poster used by the organizers. 

TIBET: GERMAN JOURNALIST HARASSED, REPRIMANDED FOR TRIP

APRIL, 2007-- Harald Maass, correspondent for the German daily Frankfurter Rundschau, was harassed after arriving in Lhasa in April to do a story on Mount Everest climbers -- along with an accompanying colleague, a photographer and the local people whom they had contacted. Maass was prevented by police from going to the city of Shigatse to do his story, while interview subjects in Lhasa, as well as a travel agency he had hired a car from, were heavily fined and warned not to talk to him. Maass was summoned by the Foreign Ministry on May 15 and strongly criticized for his trip. A ministry official told Maass to "correct his mistakes."

BEIJING: CANADIAN REPORTER  REPRIMANDED FOR COVERAGE OF JAILED CANADIAN CITIZEN 

APRIL 30, 2007-- Geoffrey York, correspondent for Canada’s Globe and Mail, was called into the Foreign Ministry to be reprimanded over his coverage of the case of Huseyin Celil, a Canadian citizen and ethnic Uyghur who was recently found guilty of “splittism” and membership in terrorist organizations by a Xinjiang court. The ministry official expressed dissatisfaction that York and his coverage had raised questions about the case and about the fairness of the Chinese legal system. The official also expressed displeasure with a 63-word article about the plight of Tibetans, Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities.

SHANGHAI: JAPANESE NEWSPAPER REPORTER ATTACKED AT CONSTRUCTION SITE OF 2010 WORLD EXPO 

MARCH 27, 2007-- Mayumi Otani, correspondent for Japan's Mainichi Newspaper, was assaulted in Shanghai on March 27 while covering a demonstration in a neighborhood that was being demolished for the 2010 World Expo.  Three men hit her while she was photographing a protestor who was being forced into a government car.  Otani stumbled and fell into the bushes.  When she protested to a government official who was at the site, he replied that the local workers were ill-mannered. A demonstrator told her the three men had been hired by the government or the construction company to ensure that the project went smoothly.

BEIJING: AMERICAN PHOTOJOURNALIST JOSTLED AND REPEATEDLY STOPPED FROM PHOTOGRAPHING, INTERVIEWING  

Elizabeth Dalziel, photographer for the Associated Press, has on several occasions been stopped by plain clothes police, security guards and regular police when trying to interview or take photographs of activists and other sources. In one case, she was detained by police officers shortly after arriving at the “petitioners village” in Beijing. She was later told she could shoot photos as long as she was not on the grounds of the petitions office. However, she was later blocked, pushed and shoved by plain clothes police who arrived there shortly afterwards.  

N. KOREA BORDER: BRITISH TV CREW DETAINED TWICE  

JAN., 2007-- Holly Williams and her crew from Britain’s Sky News were detained twice in two days in January near the North Korean border, where they were doing a story about signs of North Korean poverty which were evident in China. On the first occasion secret police detained the crew then handed them over to local police, who said they themselves “still hadn’t grasped” the new regulations. After a couple hours the journalists were released, following a call to the foreign ministry. The following day, a military officer grabbed their camera while they were filming and gave it back only after the crew agreed to go with him to a nearby military base. They were held there for several hours and eventually released after a second call to the foreign ministry that day. Sky News employees also have been compelled to stop reporting in Tiananmen Square and reprimanded officially regarding a story on the state of China’s zoos. 

2006 Reporting Interference Incidents

2005 and earlier