What happened - why was a british reporter arrested by the Chinese?

Question

What happened - why was a british reporter arrested by the Chinese?

Answer 1

BEIJING - 8 PRO-TIBET DEMONSTRATORS BRIT REPORTER ARRESTED

(AGI) - Beijing, 13th August - The latest pro-Tibet protest in Beijing was smothered today at the entrance to the capital's 'Park of Ethic Culture'. Chinese police arrested eight demonstrators who were blocking the entrance to the park, six of whom were US citizens, one an Israeli, and one a Japanese.

  There is no news of their current whereabouts. "While songs and dances are on show in Beijing", said Lhadon Tethong of the organisation 'Students For a Free Tibet', "our culture is under siege and our fellow citizens forced by the pro-China authorities to keep silent about their repression". The reaction of the arresting officers at the Beijing park, not far from the Olympic stadium, also caught up John Ray, a British journalist working for ITV television, who was attempting to follow the demonstration. He was arrested, his equipment confiscated. The 'Foreign Correspondents Club' has requested the return of the equipment taken from the reporter, and the punishment of those concerned. It was not long before the International Olympic Committee spoke out: "Our position is clear: Mass media have to be free to report all the news relating to the Games".

Answer 2

from the only report of arrest i know of.... it had something to do with reporters trying to film protestors.  

Answer 3

The Chinese officer foolishly thought the reporter was a protester but was later found in the precinct that he was a British reporter caught at the wrong place at the wrong time and let him go 15 minutes later.

Answer 4

British reporter arrested at Tibet protest

EIJING, Aug. 13 (UPI) -- A British television reporter says he was roughed up and taken away by police while attempting to cover a Tibet protest in Beijing during the Olympic Games.

John Ray, the China correspondent for Independent Television News, was grabbed by police, who forced him to the ground and stomped on his hand before bundling him into a van for trying to cover a pro-Tibet protest by foreign activists, The Times of London reported Wednesday.

Ray said he was taken to a nearby restaurant and detained for about 30 minutes, where police interrogated him on his views on Tibet.

"I said I was a journalist and had no views on Tibet," he told the Times.

The newspaper said it took Chinese police only a minute to detain the protesters from Students for a Free Tibet, two of whom tried to wave a "Free Tibet" banner from a bridge outside the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park near Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium.

The Foreign Correspondents Club of China told the Times: "We are appalled at this treatment of an accredited journalist within half a mile of the Olympic Park. We call on the government to apologize for his treatment."