Hong Kong reporters, foreigners expelled from Lhasa (footage)

Several Hong Kong media outlets say that HK reporters were expelled from Lhasa four days after the violent riot began.

In addition, all foreigners were also "asked" to leave Tibet.

Unlike western reporters, HK reporters have been enjoying more freedom of movement in China. Before yesterday, there were 15 HK reporters working in Lhasa, most of them from TVs and radio, though one of them was from a HK English newspaper. They were among a rarely few reporters outside of China who were able to stay when the riot broke out. Most of these reporters have official reporters' permits issued by the communications unit of the State Department.

However, cops accompanied by staff of China's HK-Macau Office knocked on the door of every hotel room that HK reporters were staying at midnight yesterday. They were told they were engaging in "inappropriate reporting" since they did not get prior permission of the people whom they took pictures or video from.

At least one TV station had aired footage of riot cops searching every household in the Muslim residential area and arresting rioters. These cops were shown carrying guns.

They were asked to hand in their camera, memory cards and recordings. "One of them copied TV footage with their own camera while the other copied images and recordings from our computers," said one TV reporter.

Any visuals that had cops in the background were deleted, even some of those were private photos.

The whole process lasted for about 45 minutes.

Why didn't the reporters resist?

"We knew there was just no room for negotiation," another HK reporter said.

Next morning, at around 9 a.m., 15 reporters were escorted to Lhasa Airport. A staff of the HK-Macau Office warned them they couldn't shoot any footage of the outside while being transported to the airport by a bus.

Once at the airport, the reporters were asked to pay 1600 yuan each for an one-way flight to Chengdu.

Wang Youjin, a researcher with the Institute of Asia Pacific Research of HK's Chinese University, said this showed how fragile "freedom of the press" was to the central government.

"It's not 'foreigners' trying to offend China, it's China offending itself," Wang said.

One commentator said the Chinese officials tried to be "open" on the first day. As such, some western reporters and visitors were allowed to stay and China's state-owned CCTV proactively released footage of the riot (which was rare to the Chinese standard).

However, when they found that all outside reportage has completely been biased against China after the first day, they decided to ask all foreigners to leave.

Meanwhile, HK media report that many businesses have re-opened and schools resumed yesterday.

Now, when all foreigners had left, worries about more aggressive arrests would be made are intensifying.

(Sources: Ming Pao, Apple Daily, Oriental Daily, Phoenix TV)

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