Immigration police pulled two reporters away from the emergency ward at Tiantan hospital in Beijing where they were reporting on the beating of Christian activist Hua Huiqi. At the time, Hua Huiqi was unconscious; it seemed he was being denied treatment.
The police were polite, but spent half an hour examining passports and press cards, and lecturing the reporters on a rule about carrying their police residence registration.
“They knew they couldn’t stop us from doing what we were doing. It seemed designed to take the journalist away from the story,” said South China Morning Post reporter Didi Kirsten Tatlow.