Finnish Reporter Roughed Up In Sichuan

May 14, 2008

Four policemen pushed around and detained for 90 minutes a Finnish TV reporter who was on her way to Beichuan near the epicenter of the Sichuan earthquake.

Katri Makkonen of the Finnish broadcasting company YLE said police harassed her after local Foreign Affairs officers told her they had an order not to allow foreign correspondents to enter the hard-hit city.

“My cameraman managed to get in. While I was being detained, he was helping people buried in the rubble, without many rescuers in sight,” Makkonen said. She was later allowed to enter the city. Despite the detention, Makkonen was generally “very very surprised by the good way we were treated. At one roadblock I told the military I was a journalist, and he said ‘welcome’ and let us in.”