Police and local officials who refused to identify hemselves followed for nine hours, harassed and briefly detained three foreign journalists, their Chinese assistant and a source traveling with them in Hebei Province. The media were trying to report on water diversion to Beijing. The journalists – one each from the U.S., the Netherlands, and Spain [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

Police detained a reporter and cameraman for a Japanese broadcaster as they attempted to cover a story about drought in Hebei province. The news crew was forced to halt filming of farmers in a corn field, then taken away to a restaurant where they were interrogated and forced to destroy their tapes. After more than [...]