Henan county chief apologizes for assault on journalists
A reporter tries to take pictures of the scene while being blocked by some unidentified people outside the cemetery where the burial service for four children killed at a construction accident in Yuanyang County, central Henan Province, took place on Tuesday.
Party secretary of Yuanyang County in central China's Henan Province, where four children were found dead at a construction site on Saturday, has apologized after some government staff scuffled with journalists, beating them and grabbing their phones while they were trying to report on the burial service for the children at a cemetery on Tuesday, people.cn reported on Thursday.
“We apologize for the incident which had a bad effect. Staff involved in the conflict have been suspended from their jobs and further investigation is under way,” Guo Liming told people.cn on Wednesday.
People.cn further reported that Yuanyang Subdistrict office director Guo Yong had also apologized for the mistreatment of journalists.
Guo Yong said that they had arranged for some staff, including Li Chengkai, to go to the cemetery on Tuesday to keep order and prevent people from gathering due to the coronavirus pandemic and also to adhere to local customs which suggests that only parents and relatives go to the burials so that the deceased can be interred in peace.
Li admitted that they scuffled with journalists while blocking them from going into the cemetery, causing spectacles of some reporters to fall. When reporters took out their phones to take pictures, the staff tried to stop them, snatching the handsets and later clearing all their data, people.cn reported.
The tragedy took place on Saturday when bodies of the four children, aged 6 to 10, were found in an earth dump in a residential community under construction in Yuanyang. The children were from a neighboring village.
Illegal construction led to the death of the children. Eight suspects, including directors of the construction project and a driver, were detained for further investigation, according to local authorities.
Two officials — Sun Guo’an, Party Secretary and director of the county’s housing and urban-rural development bureau, and Wang Jiangang, chief of the safety section — were removed from office for lax supervision.
A Hongxing News reporter shows his torn clothes and damaged spectacles after the scuffle.
The reporter shows a streak of blood on his arm.
In a video published by Hongxing News on Tuesday, reporters from media, including Hongxing, The Beijing News and Shangyou News, can be seen forcibly blocked by at least 10 unidentified people from entering the cemetery. When reporters questioned why they couldn’t go in, the answer was: “Not at present”. The reporters then asked them whether they were government officials; they answered: No. And they refused to reveal their identities despite repeated requests and insisted on blocking their entry.
Hongxing News said that it had got prior permission from family members to report on the burials. After reporters took out their phones to take pictures, the conflict escalated and two of the media persons were assaulted, their phones snatched away, spectacles trampled upon and clothes torn.
That night, two reporters got their phones back from an official with Yuanyang’s publicity department. However, they found that the instruments were wiped clean, all data deleted.
