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Sina Weibo (Sun Breaking News)
This unconfirmed group of photos reportedly show villagers from the Zhejiang village of Panhe protesting what they claim are illegal land grabs by local officials.
BEIJING – If you thought that Guangdong province’s peaceful handling of the Wukan uprising last year would become the precedent for managing future mass protests in China, guess again.
Early Tuesday morning, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China notified journalists that three employees of European news agencies had been attacked in two separate incidents this past week while attempting to cover a land dispute story in eastern China.
The three were attempting to cover protests in the village of Panhe in eastern Zhejiang province. The first attack happened on February 15, when a Dutch journalist was accosted by a group of what appeared to be plainclothes police after interviewing villagers in Panhe.
The reporter was beaten and had his notebook and camera memory card confiscated.
The next day, a French reporter was attempting to drive to Panhe with his Chinese assistant when another car collided into theirs. The reporter described the incident as “obviously 100 percent intentional.”
After the journalist's vehicle was rammed, a group of men approached the car, dragged his Chinese assistant out and assaulted him.
When they finished beating the assistant, the men walked to the side of the road and smoked cigarettes until a police car arrived.
No arrests were made, but the local Wenzhou government apologized for the incident, according to the French journalist
Chinese police beat-up journalists
To be sure, press restrictions in China have been relaxed considerably in recent years, but since last year’s anonymous calls for a “Jasmine Revolution,” local municipal and provincial governments appear especially sensitive to negative press and foreign reporting on so-called "mass incidents."
It’s unclear whether the Panhe attacks represent a government-driven reversal in strategy for dealing with foreign press coverage of mass incidents. It is nevertheless a stark reminder of the dangers of reporting local disturbances despite the optimism inspired by the peaceful resolution of the Wukan rebellion.
Rebellious Chinese village takes baby steps toward democracy
Rebellious Chinese village under siege by police
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I'd say the Frenchman was lucky he didn't get a beat down too, or he could have been taken in for questioning for the next 10 to 15 years. What is France going to do, send a strongly worded letter to China? Journalists know what they are getting themselfs into when they go ahead and try to report what is going on. Journalists do not have a magic immunity in countries like China, Iran, Syria, N. Korea or many of the Muslim and African nations. If you want a skoop, then you have to be willing to take the good with the bad. That Frenchman was lucky.
The Journalists may know what they getting into but the why is more important. They do it so the World will know what is going on. BTW that is "scoop" not skoop.
Would you say all journalists all over the world are lucky if they were not beaten up ? Why just pick on this particular one ?
Hey China this proves you can't get away with the crap you have without the World knowing now. So you may as well start being the "People's Party" for real now and quit being "Self" serving
I'm tired of these police and government violating the rights of innocent people. Once they go too far then it's time to call in the ninjas. All ninjas from Mongolia please come down and take out one police officer each time an innocent person is falsely imprisoned, beaten, or is killed by this corrupt government and police department!
But our Obama says this is what the entire world should expect and emulate. E.g., "[President Obama] praised Indonesia - the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation - for a "spirit of tolerance that is written into your constitution, symbolized in your mosques and churches and temples, and embodied in your people," a quality worthy for all the world to emulate."
Wilson, S. (Nov. 10, 2010) "Obama praises Indonesia's 'spirit of tolerance' as a model" retrieved Feb. 10,
2012 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/09/AR2010110906579.html?wprss=rss_print
yeah but if you did that there would be no government left in china at all. you would need a lot of ninja.
Indonesian is not China - take a geographycourse. That should clear it up in no time. China makes no secret of its preference for "Han" Chinese. The seem to have inherited the "White" imperative in China.
Our Omnisicient Obama says that all the world should emulate the kind human rights violations visited by the Indonesians on its citizenry--this is Our Obama's hope for the United States and all the world. E.g., "[President Obama] praisedIndonesia - the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation - for a "spirit of tolerance that is written into your constitution, symbolized in your mosques and churches and temples, and embodied in your people," a quality worthy for all the world to emulate."
Wilson, S. (Nov. 10, 2010) "Obama praises Indonesia's 'spirit of tolerance' as a model" retrieved Feb. 10,
2012 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/09/AR2010110906579.html?wprss=rss_print
What !!!
No children or old ladies?
That's not their style !!!
Chinese officials are corrupt. It's a fact. Whatever they can steal in the name of the government, they will.
I can assure you that it is not official party and government policy to harass foreign journalist in manner described in above article. Most likely it was work of local crook who doesn't want to be exposed. Central government is doing all they can to curb corruption. I live in Shanghai and have seen police officers handling infractions and disputes between citizens very thoughtfully, way that policemen in USA could learn one thing or two. They don't carry guns; don't kill people way they do in USA. I myself had a problem one time and police was more than helpful to resolve the issue.
Why don’t you people check your own backyard first before you criticize other country government. For one thing I do not see China engaging in unjust wars killing innocent people by millions.
And there is one other thing about USA, "government of the people, by the people, for the people”.
Give me a break.
... for the game and the win ... What is Tibet?
And for bonus points - how many school kids died in the last earthquake, due to government approved - quake proof - new! school buildings. Wanna ride the Bullet train? maybe the bugs are out - this time.
Can U.N. help to solve this problem?
Absolutely NOT! China is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, which gives them veto power. All you have to do is look back to the resolution on Syria! Russia and China both vetoed it.
Any international organization who invites madmen like Ahmadinejad has no credibility (or balls) anyway.
Sounds like something the Union Workers do in this country when they don't get what they want. No difference.
These people in China had legit complain and government handled it rightly, do some more reading about it.
So I see that you @#$% in your own nest. You mean that your fellow Americans are trying to get perhaps more money after the same people that are employing them are raising their rent, food prices, gas prices and maximizing their profits by taking your jobs to other countries like Malaysia? Similarly, working people should shut up when their hard earned savings (401K) are stolen by wall street crooks? Just take a good look at companies likes of Apple, largest American company in the world, money-wise. Yet they do not employ Americans to make most of their products. Your skills obtained by hard work, expensive schooling are commodity just like any other and you should be able to negotiate the price for it.
You probably want to go back to times when Americans were working 12 hours a day for sub-existence wages.
China can easily say.."NO foreign journalists". If they let them in, then they should protect them. China will eventually become an ally so I'd like it to happen sooner rather than later...Yes or No to journalists..they just need to answer that question and follow through with it...
I can see your point. You don't mind being ally to those beating up journalists, and after beating up those journalists, you still have to ask the question of "Yes or No to journalists.". You do not deserve any freedom of expression, rights to information, and journalistic freedom.
Hey ! Maybe we can start that here in the US, put it in the night clubs......"Journalist Beating", that may be more fun than midget Bowling !
All western journalists should leave China. You now have best reason to invent any news and rumor about China. The rule is: for every good news on China in Xinhua, People' s Daily, Global Times and China daily, you are allowed to write a bad news story about China to balance the world's news. For every bad news about the west on these papers, you can writeanother bad news story about China. We will soon have balanced reporting in the world soon.
I was a senior correspondent for an industry magazine, specializing in Sino-US relations and trade, in the '80s and '90s. Western journalists should REMAIN in China to report, however surreptitiously they need to, on human and civil rights violations by the communist Chinese government.
I bypassed the Great Firewall of China in the early days of widespread censorship, and filed my stories via a free-world proxy server. F**k the Chinese government. I have no respect for methodical, organized bands of child-killers, and I totally support any effort by the Chinese citizenry to free themselves of this monolithic, archaic, regressive fiefdom.
More on my feelings about and experiences in China at my blog - http://justlooklikefrog.wordpress.com.
Say hello to the world's newest superpower.
Hello, Singapore.
If everything was perfect everywhere in the world and we complained about something like this, it would be ok. Look at every