Police detained a Finnish Broadcasting Co. correspondent and cameraman outside the monastery town of Xiahe in Gansu province and threatened to confiscate their footage.
The team arrived in Xiahe on March 15, and was trying to leave when law enforcement officers brought them to the police station. The police insisted they had a right to view the correspondents’ footage because the reporters had been in a forbidden area during a police operation. The police said they would confiscate any sensitive material.
“We declined to show the footage and said that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has said that foreign journalists have the right to report freely. They said ‘You don’t want to know what will happen if you don’t show us the footage,” said correspondent Katri Makkonen.
The journalists showed the police one tape. After 90 minutes, the reporters left with the tape they showed to the police as well as the ones they managed to hide.