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BEIJING: Chinese border police apologised on Tuesday for their treatment of two Japanese reporters covering a deadly assault in the northwest of the country, state media said.
The apology came after the border police "clashed" with the Japanese reporters, who had arrived in Xinjiang region after an attack there left 16 police officers dead, according to Xinhua news agency.
"The local foreign affairs department made an apology Tuesday to two Japanese reporters," Xinhua said.
A photographer for the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper was forcibly detained late Monday and kicked by police in the city of Kashgar, his employer said.
A reporter for the Nippon Television Network was also detained and manhandled by Chinese police who pushed his face to the ground, the network said.
"We are planning to make a strong protest," Japanese government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura told reporters.
Kashgar police also entered an AFP photographer's hotel room and forced him to delete photos he had taken of the attack site.
"We strongly protest against the violent detention of a reporter who was reporting by fair means," Tokyo Shimbun said in a statement.
Its photographer Masami Kawakita, 38, was detained while gathering material in a small alley "and then kicked by police," said a Tokyo Shimbun spokesman. "He was released two hours later."
Nippon Television Network said its Beijing correspondent, Shinji Katsuta, 37, was held for two hours and then questioned for about an hour at his hotel, describing the incident as "extremely deplorable".
The network has received word that the local police had requested a meeting to apologise for the incident, a spokesman said.
"We heard that the Chinese side pointed out that it is forbidden to film military facilities, and it seems like there was confusion because the scene of the assault was just 50 metres (yards) from a military facility," he said.
The assault came just four days before the Beijing Olympics, which has drawn thousands of foreign journalists and is being seen as a litmus test of China's willingness to allow greater press freedom.
China's foreign ministry did not immediately comment on the handling of the reporters and did not confirm if it had received a formal Japanese protest.
- AFP/so
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