BEIJING — As Beijing police scrambled Wednesday to whisk away a group of Free Tibet protesters near the Olympic Park, they also detained and roughed up a British reporter covering the demonstration.
“I was shouting, ‘I’m a British journalist,’ ” John Ray, a correspondent for Britain’s Independent Television News, said later. But police dragged Ray into the back of a nearby restaurant and later bundled him into a police van. “It was very forceful, very rough,” he said.
The incident is the latest example of a foreign journalist being blocked from reporting in China, despite promises by the government and Olympic officials that the media would be free to operate during the Games. Several journalists attempting to cover small protests around Beijing have been harassed, photographed and manhandled.
Ray’s Olympic credentials were in his pocket, but he could not reach them because police had pinned his arms behind him, “one guy holding each arm,” he said. The officers pulled off Ray’s shoes and when he tried to struggle away, they kicked his legs, tripping him.
Five or six officers then “frog-marched” Ray to a police van, he said, and pushed him in, throwing in a yellow cloth behind him before they slammed the doors. His hands now free, he showed the officers his credentials and, after about 20 minutes, was released.
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