British journalist arrested for covering Free Tibet protest in Beijing

13 August 2008/Beijing/Phayul.com/TibetPress

Beijing, August 13 - Chinese police dragged a British journalist along the ground and detained him after he tried to report on a pro-Tibet protest near the main Olympic stadium, witnesses told AFP. Uniformed police pounced on John Ray, the China correspondent for Independent Television News (ITN), shortly after a group of foreign protesters unfurled a pro-Tibet banner, the reporter and another ITN staff member said. The protesters were arrested within seconds and Ray was dragged into a nearby restaurant and forcibly held down by officers who also stamped on his hands, they said. “I tried to explain to them that I was a British journalist but they would not even let me take out my identifiction documents, they were very rough,” Ray said. ITN cameraman Ben England said he tried to film the protest but was physically prevented from doing so by police who manhandled him and used umbrellas to try to block his camera.