BEIJING, Aug. 13 (UPI) -- A British television reporter says he was roughed up and taken away by police while attempting to cover a Tibet protest in Beijing during the Olympic Games.
John Ray, the China correspondent for Independent Television News, was grabbed by police, who forced him to the ground and stomped on his hand before bundling him into a van for trying to cover a pro-Tibet protest by foreign activists, The Times of London reported Wednesday.
Ray said he was taken to a nearby restaurant and detained for about 30 minutes, where police interrogated him on his views on Tibet.
"I said I was a journalist and had no views on Tibet," he told the Times.
The newspaper said it took Chinese police only a minute to detain the protesters from Students for a Free Tibet, two of whom tried to wave a "Free Tibet" banner from a bridge outside the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park near Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium.
The Foreign Correspondents Club of China told the Times: "We are appalled at this treatment of an accredited journalist within half a mile of the Olympic Park. We call on the government to apologize for his treatment."
