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, when hundreds of armed thugs killed six and injured 51 farmers while seeking to evict them from their land to make way for a power plant.
Local police accused the AFP journalists of illegal reporting and demanded the names of their contacts in the village. The journalists were released after they showed the local Foreign Affairs officials a copy of the new Olympic reporting rules.