Clashes at Olympic-Ticket Sale in China Fuel Worry

Incidents Spur Fears
About Treatment
Of Media at Games

By MEI FONG and LORETTA CHAO
July 26, 2008; Page A4

BEIJING -- Chinese police clashed with Hong Kong reporters at a chaotic last-minute sale of Olympics tickets, highlighting concerns about how China's government will deal with an unprecedented influx of journalists coming for next month's Games.

Video of the incidents, which occurred Thursday and Friday, showed uniformed police aggressively questioning, and in some cases shoving or hitting, several Hong Kong reporters who were covering the ticket sales, where thousands of prospective buyers jostled for position. At least one reporter was temporarily detained.

Getty Images

Chinese policemen clash with journalists during a chaotic sale of Olympics tickets in Beijing. Such incidents are raising concerns as thousands of journalists arrive to cover the Games.

Thousands of reporters are expected to cover the Olympics, and many of them are used to far greater leeway to cover news than Beijing typically allows. China had promised the International Olympic Committee that it would allow freedom of the press during the Games as part of its obligations as host city. At the beginning of the year, authorities relaxed regulations limiting the movements of foreign reporters in China. But the looser policy doesn't apply to reporters from Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, albeit one governed under a separate, freer political system.

The incidents prompted criticism from journalist groups. "We strongly condemn all these assailants, including the Beijing Public Security personnel for their wanton violation of Press Freedom," read a statement by the Hong Kong Journalists Association. The group said the actions follow "other attempts by Public Security personnel in Beijing to prevent Hong Kong media people from [exercising] their normal, legitimate rights to gather news in China."

An official of the Beijing Public Security Bureau, surnamed Zhang, said the bureau wasn't aware of the incidents.

Authorities have sharply tightened security procedures in the run-up to the Games, which start in less than two weeks. The stricter measures have fanned fears that authorities may overreact to civil protests and to members of the press who attempt to cover such incidents.

At least 400,000 foreigners are expected to attend the Games, as well as hundreds of thousands of Chinese from outside Beijing.

This week's scuffles broke out when Beijing sold the last round of some 820,000 tickets for Olympics events. The sale had been long planned, but police were caught off guard by the large numbers of prospective buyers.

BEIJING 2008

Read complete coverage of the Olympics and China's efforts to prepare for the Games, and track the torch's route.

A report by China's state-run Xinhua news agency said that at its peak, the mob of ticket buyers near the main Olympic venues numbered more than 30,000 people. The report said that a combination of heat and long wait times made people "emotional" and that more police officers had to be deployed to the scene as the crowds became rowdy. It said that some of the reporters "from China and overseas" tried to enter a "forbidden area."

One journalist, Felix Wong, a photographer with Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, was detained Friday while covering a scuffle that broke out when crowds swarmed a ticketing office, according to Mr. Wong. Xinhua said Mr. Wong had broken through a barricade and kicked a police officer in the groin.

Mr. Wong, in a telephone interview, said he was pushed by a police officer and may have accidentally kicked him in response. Mr. Wong said he was detained for about six hours.

The South China Morning Post issued a statement saying, "We believe Felix was just trying to do his job as a photojournalist. Both journalists and policemen, as well as the tens of thousands of Beijingers who queued up for the tickets, were victims of the relevant authorities' failure to make proper arrangements for the orderly sale of tickets."

In a separate incident, footage from Hong Kong's Television Broadcasts Ltd., or TVB, that was posted on YouTube showed a mob scene at the Olympic area, where massive crowds were pushed back by police officers. The video then showed a police line trying to herd journalists back from filming the scene. A police officer then slips under the police tape and lunges at a reporter who won't budge, shoving him to the ground.

Another video, posted Thursday by the Hong Kong-based Network of the World, or NOW, appears to show police moving in to break up a fight and then asking to see the identification of journalists covering the action. "What media are you from?" a police officer asks repeatedly of the reporters. One answers, "I'm from Hong Kong," to which the officer replies, "Well, you're from Hong Kong, but you're in Beijing, and you must follow the laws of Beijing."

Francis Moriarty, a spokesman for the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong, said the organization planned to hold a meeting Saturday to discuss the incidents.

"We always view cases of interference with seriousness, especially now given the promises made to reporters that they would have freedom of coverage during the Games. I hope this is a one-off," he said.

--Kersten Zhang, Gao Sen and Jason Leow contributed to this article.

Write to Mei Fong at mei.fong@wsj.com and Loretta Chao at loretta.chao@wsj.com