On February 4, when a Dutch news reporter Sjoerd den Daas was doing a live broadcast on a street in Beijing, on his home TV station NOS, a Chinese authority’ staff-member in plain clothes grabbed his arm by force and dragged him around. The Chinese staff-member was wearing a red armband (indicating he was from the authorities). He dragged the reporter out of range of the camera and told him that he should not do broadcasting at that location. Then another Chinese staff member also took their lighting equipment. The TV news broadcast was interrupted and the home anchor was shocked and astonished. Sjoerd den Daas then moved to a parking lot at the corner to continue his TV broadcast. Later he told people that he was at the location where the Beijing authorities allowed news reporters to do broadcasts.
The International Olympic Games (IOC) spokesperson Mark Adams said that they had contacted the NOS about this unfortunate incident. He further called it a single incident and assured people that they could continue their work in the “closed loop,” an isolated section that Beijing had set up for the Olympic athletes, staff, and reporters.
However, NOS said that the IOC had not contacted it. The IOC had not contacted the NOS management, the news and sports chief editor, the manager of the Olympic team in Beijing, nor the news reporter himself. The IOC had not contacted any of them.
Sjoerd den Daas said this was not the first time he received this kind of treatment in China. He tweeted that in the past few weeks, he and several colleagues from other countries, were interfered with or were stopped multiple times when they were reporting about the Olympic Games.
Source: Epoch Times, February 5, 2022
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/2/5/n13557122.htm