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Japanese journalists beaten & detained by Chinese police

Two Japanese journalists who had been reporting near the scene of a terrorist attack in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China were attacked and beaten by Chinese paramilitary policemen:

Masami Kawakita, a photographer for The Tokyo Shimbun, and Shinji Katsuta, a Beijing-based reporter for Nippon Television Network Corp., were knocked down, kicked, trampled on and hit in the face at a police facility on Monday night, their respective media organizations said.

Kawakita, 38, and Katsuta, 37, were detained for about two hours, although they were not seriously injured.

Police seized two of Kawakita’s cameras, demanding he hand over photographs, although he had not taken any.

One of the cameras was rendered useless. Kawakita also had his cellphone seized.

The Japanese government issued an official complaint about the incident, and Chinese authorities apologized to the journalists.

19 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - August 6, 2008 at 8:22 am

Categories: General Japan Tags: china, human rights, japan

Mister M

No wonder why Chinese have bad image overseas. This kind of attitude just show us how uncivilized they are. Shame on you Chinese government!!
morningstar

This story is very disturbing. Japan hope they will be very hard on getting a good apology from the Chinese government. One apology for the reporters,one for the buisness, and the last for the Japannese Governemnt.
Skeptic

Although I wish it never happened, police brutality is not unique in China. In the United States, many U.S. citizens are killed by police tasers every year.

phauna

Oh, well, it’s perfectly okay then, if it happens in the US.
Rob

Although I wish it never happened, police brutality is not unique in China. In the United States, many U.S. citizens are killed by police tasers every year.

And your point is?

Level3

Wow. It took 3 messages before the paid Chinese Internet agents showed up. You guys are slipping.

Do Chinese police have tasers?
No. They just shoot people dead for speaking their minds.

In contrast, Amerian police shoot people for waving around guns and/or killing innocent people. You know actual, real, violent, deadly CRIMES.

Apparently minor “offenses” such as taking photos outside of Beijing apparently only yield a beating and theft of the camera if you’re a foreigner. If they later find out you work for a large media company in a wealthy nation that has business dealing with China, they might even apolgize afterwards.

Chinese people who try to take such photos, and their families, aren’t so lucky.

http://www.japanprobe.com James

Level3:

You have no proof that users commenting here are paid agents of the Chinese government, so stop the name-calling.

Level3

Can you check the IP addresses?

http://www.japanprobe.com James

Yes, I can, and the IP’s are not in China. Even if they were in China, it wouldn’t justify your ungrounded claim that the person commenting is a paid Chinese agent.

I suggest you stop acting like a jerk when you reply to comments you don’t agree with. Making wild claims about people and declaring them “pwned” is not okay, and I’ll have to start deleting your comments if you continue such behavior.

Kevin

Seriously, where do you get some of your information from? After reading much of what goes on in the “Comments” section, it seems that there’s a group of people intent on bashing China, and turning away from any responses given by those who carry any other perspective. While China may not have free speech and their people often simply reiterate whatever the government wants them to believe it, it doesn’t seem as though you’re much different by any means.
Instead, you just regurgitate whatever your media tells you. Let me ask you, do you LIVE in the US? ‘Cause I certainly do, and I can attest to the fact that police are by no means responding with force only to, “You know, real, violent, deadly CRIMES.” Police brutality is a real problem in America, whether or not you want to open your eyes and believe it. Please, do feel free to look it up on Google or whatever, I’m sure you’ll find a wealth of information covering excessive police force. People have been killed more than once at simple traffic stops, where the police identify the victim of their actions as either having had a weapon or reaching for one, when the consequent investigation reveals absolutely nothing involving sharp objects of firearms or any sort. Sure, not all cops are so hasty to reach for that trigger, but there are a variety of examples in the past that you can look up, if you’re actually interested in being informed on the world beyond China-bashing.
Furthermore, as I’ve also read in previous comments, it is a bit curious as to how coverage on anything by China turns out to be so negative. Is China such a pit that no positive light possibly can shine through? In that case why do we even bother with them? We can surely find other useful people to mistreat and manipulate at perhaps a slightly higher cost, but at least we wouldn’t be dealing with a country with nothing but problems. Or perhaps there’s reason for media to attract viewership, and that dissent from popular opinion could quite possibly result in a reduction of their profits? Well, of course that could never be true! After all, our freedom of speech guarantees that media broadcasts are fair and see all things with an objective eye, right?

Level3

Whatever.
Pot, meet Kettle.

The main point is US police use force when there is violence or the threat of violence, or they mistakenly believe there is a threat of violence, often due to their own racism and poor training.

American police do not shoot people for marching in the streets, criticizing the government in a blog, or taking photos.

Pwned.

Kevin

Yes, I’m sure that Chinese police would say the same thing that they conduct themselves accordingly. Does it always turn out to be true? Of course not, and the same goes for the police in the States. Are you so ignorant that you thing justice is truly preserved with American law enforcement? That their training puts them above the law? I will agree with you, racism and poor training is involved in those unfortunate outcomes, but that applies elsewhere too, and isn’t an excuse for their inappropriate actions.

Is unfair treatment of minority groups unique to America? Absolutely not. As you’ve stated (and probably the only thing you’ll reiterate time and again), China has examples of police brutality. Japanese police at the same time also target foreigners unfairly, but who honestly cares? Apparently only those who are unfortunately exposed to such treatment.

Do you honestly believe that China’s police care only to push people around? Do you even know what the media’s job is? Yes, let’s go around town and record all those everyday events and the police doing their job of pulling people over for speeding, etc. That makes money and attracts people to watch your news, right? Seriously, China is a large country with an incredible population, which makes it natural for a larger number of people to make mistakes, at which point it’s suddenly INTERESTING, so the media focuses on that. If you ask Japanese people, I’m willing to bet a relatively large group of them carry the belief that every last single American owns a gun and is ready to use it. Is that true, or perhaps Japanese media focuses on guns so much that the Japanese, who rely on their media like anybody else in the world, now falls prey to such a misguided idea? Open your eyes and think for yourself. Of course, judging by your use of “Pwned” in such an intelligent and friendly manner, I can only expect so much from somebody with a set perspective, unwilling to look beyond what may be immediately available to you. I only hope that the other readers here won’t be nearly as ignorant as you have shown yourself to be.
Matt

Are you actually suggesting that the beatings, arrests, and harassment of journalists in China are mistakes? And the reason for those mistakes are because there are so many people in China? Don’t be so naive. Without accountability for their actions, these actions are official policy (at least in the local government level) not mistakes.

And what is the media’s job? In terms of news, it is, in theory, to investigate and report events to the public. But more importantly, their job is to keep the government in check. Not only to report terrorist attacks like the Japanese reporters were doing but make sure that government officials are accountable for wrongdoing.

Of course you see the real problem. Not mistakes resulting in a large population but the fact that corruption and unaccountability are inseparable from politics and business in China. The journalist whose job it is to report these things, and expose corruption are natural enemies of the Chinese government and that is why beatings happen. This is also why the government controls the media in China. To keep journalists from doing their job.

Level3

BTW, if you wrote the same thing as above about Chinese police while living in China, would you at least acknowledge that you’d be at the very least censored, and likely worse?

Kevin

Sure, if that satisfies your daily urge to slam om China and the ignorant Chinese who make up the entire population of the country. I won’t disagree to the point that censorship exists in China, but censorship exists elsewhere in the world as well to varying degrees. Human rights activists can complain all they want, but where are the complaints on similar activities conducted in the past by developed countries? Oh, silly me, that’s right! It’s only China in the world that does that.

http://uncensor.com.au/ kim

Journalists and writers must be allowed to do their work without fear of arrest, harassment, beating, imprisonment and torture. What happened to the promises China made that the Olympics would improve human rights?

http://www.uncensor.com.au
Eddie

From the report it’s hard to tell what really provoked the police to act in the way they did.

I think many people have been brainwashed by the media as to just how ‘bad’ China is. It’s all about the economic war between the US and Europe – the US/UK are doing as much China bashing as possible, where as Europe are trying to increase links with China in the hope that China will begin trading commodities in Euros instead of US Dollars.
Asuka

When given power, people tend to abuse it (ref: Stanford Prison Experiment) – it doesn’t just happen in China. However, I am very disappointed that the Chinese police had to resort to physical violence to carry out orders.
Matt

I think this is just a huge misunderstanding. I really believe that the Chinese police thought the reporters they were beating were Chinese. That this was just your average everyday reporter beating in China.

But it ends up they were wrong and the reporters were Japanese so apologizing was the right thing to do.

Japanese journalists beaten & detained by Chinese police

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