Feature Story News Reporter Sam Beattie and AFP’s Francois Bougon spent ten hours with police after interviewing and filming matchmakers in Beijing’s Zhongshan Park.
The journalists called the police after four people, including an older woman, grabbed them and demanded they delete footage of the people in the crowd who had not given permission to be filmed. (The four claimed to represent the people in the park.) The reporters showed the woman and other complainants that their images were not recorded.
The police tried to find a compromise, and suggested the reporters delete the tape. The reporters declined. At 2:00 a.m., after intervention by a senior police officer and a Foreign Ministry official, the reporters were allowed to depart with the tape.