The British Government described this Monday as “unacceptable” and “worrying” the violence suffered by a BBC journalist in China, arrested while covering the demonstrations in Shanghai against the covid-19 measures.
“Whatever the situation, press freedom must be sacrosanct,” Britain’s Minister for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Grant Shapps told British radio LBC.
The British public channel BBC, through a spokesman, was “very concerned” when confirming that the image reporter Edward Lawrence “was attacked” in Shanghai on Sunday, as shown by images shared on social networks, in which you can see seeing policemen dragging the handcuffed journalist along the ground.
“It is very worrying that one of our journalists has been attacked in this way in the course of his duties,” the spokesman added, speaking to British radio station LBC.
The BBC criticized the fact that he had not received any official explanation or apology from the authorities, “apart from a statement that he would have been detained for his own good, had he caught the coronavirus in a crowd.”
“We do not consider this to be a credible explanation,” a BBC spokesman said.
Edward Lawrence, who works at the BBC’s Beijing office, traveled to Shanghai to cover the protests in recent days.
China’s epidemic prevention measures are the most restrictive in the world, under the ‘zero cases’ policy of covid-19. The strategy includes isolating all positive cases and close contacts, locking down entire neighborhoods or cities, and constantly conducting mass testing.
In recent days, protests against the restrictions have spread to major Chinese cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing. Protests intensified on Thursday after the death of 10 people in a fire in a white building of the confinement in Urumqi.
Chinese police detained two people in Shanghai today, where protesters protested over the weekend against health restrictions in response to covid-19 and demanded more freedoms.
The Chinese capital, especially protected against outbreaks since 2020, is now experiencing the highest levels of contagion: according to the latest official report, more than 4,300 new cases were detected on Saturday, 82% of which were asymptomatic.
These figures, low by international standards but intolerable for the Chinese authorities, have resulted in restrictions and confinements that affect a large part of the population of the capital.
According to data from the National Health Commission, China broke the record for infections this Saturday by detecting almost 40,000 new cases, although more than 90% are asymptomatic cases.
Official figures show that around 1.8 million people are currently in quarantine, since the guideline is to transfer cases -including asymptomatic ones- and also, but separately, those who have had contact with those infected, to hospitals or isolation centers.
Source: TSF
