LOCATION: Urumqi
TYPE OF INCIDENT: Detained, barred from public space
TOPIC: Xinjiang Unrest
NATIONALITY/ORGANIZATION: Associated Press TV
“The police assured them that they had not broken any laws and that holding them was for their safety.”
Description: An Associated Press TV crew was detained while filming security in the Uighur neighborhood, near Xinjiang University. They filmed a bit in the neighborhood, but when they shot a few seconds of footage – from fairly far away – of the People’s Armed Police on the road, the police ran over and grabbed the reporters and the camera. They were held on the roadside for about two hours before the People’s Armed Police turned them over to local police – who held them in a local police station for about another hour and a half.
There was no physical violence, but there was the threat of it from time to time.
The authorities forcefully took the camera away, but gave it back when emotions calmed down. The crew was made to sit next to a man who was hand-cuffed to a chair.
Once the reporters were released authorities insisted on taking the pair to the hotel where the Foreign Affairs office had set up a media center and checked them in there.