The United States is “extremely concerned” by the harassment and intimidation suffered by foreign journalists covering the deadly floods in China in particular, State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Thursday.
His remarks come 24 hours after Beijing accused the BBC of fake news in the way she reported on flooding last week in central Henan province, and as British public television reported on the hostility encountered by its journalists on the ground.
“The PRC (People’s Republic of China) government says it is open to foreign press and supports its work, but its actions tell a different story,” Price said in a statement.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Thursday called the BBC “an audio-visual enterprise of fake news», Guilty of having attacked China and tarnished its reputation, in serious contradiction with the rules of journalism.
The BBC had said for its part that its journalists covering the floods had been harassed on the ground in “attacks which continue to endanger foreign journalists”.
Covering these events, several foreign reporters were taken to task by some suspicious and even hostile residents, who accused the journalists of wanting to present China in a bad light.
An AFP team was surrounded by about twenty people, some demanding to delete pictures.
According to Zhao, foreign journalists “take advantage of an open and free environment to practice their profession.”
But according to organizations defending the right to information, the working conditions of foreign journalists are deteriorating in the face of the hostility encountered on the ground, where they are sometimes followed in the street, and on social networks.
Mr. Price demanded in his statement that the Chinese authorities do not restrict press freedom on the occasion of the Olympic Winter Games next year in Beijing.
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