China: The BBC denounces the arrest of its journalist

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According to the group’s representative, the reporter was “beaten” by police officers while working as an accredited journalist.

The British public media group BBC announced on Sunday that one of its journalists in China, who was covering the protests in Shanghai against the draconian “zero COVID” policy, was arrested and “beaten by the police”.

“The BBC is very concerned about the treatment of our journalist Ed Lawrence, who was arrested and handcuffed while covering the protests in Shanghai,” a spokesman for the group said in a statement sent to AFP.

According to the spokesman, the reporter was “beaten” by police officers while working as an accredited journalist.

Hundreds of people demonstrated over the weekend in China, especially in major cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, in protest at the lockdowns and restrictive measures imposed by the authorities as part of the fight against the new coronavirus epidemic.

The spokesman stressed that the BBC had received “no official explanation or apology from the Chinese authorities, other than a statement by public officials, who later released him, that they arrested him for his own good, so that he would not be infected (by SARS-CoV -2) in the middle of the crowd”.

“We don’t think that’s a credible explanation,” he added.

RES-EMP

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