The BBC deplores the arrest of one of its journalists in China

A BBC journalist covering protests against the regime’s ‘zero Covid’ policy has been arrested in Shanghai and ‘beaten by police’.

SourceAFP

UA British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reporter was covering a protest against the Chinese regime’s draconian ‘zero Covid’ policy on Sunday, November 27, in Shanghai, when he was allegedly arrested and ‘beaten by police’. “The BBC is very concerned about the treatment of our journalist Ed Lawrence who was arrested and handcuffed while covering the protests in Shanghai,” a spokesperson for the group said in a statement sent to the Agence France-Presse (AFP). According to him, “he was beaten and hit by the police” while working as an accredited journalist in the country.

Hundreds of people demonstrated this weekend in China in several major cities, including Shanghai and Beijing, to protest against the confinements and restrictions imposed by the authorities to fight against the epidemic of coronavirus. The spokesperson explained that the BBC had had “no official explanation or apology from the Chinese authorities, beyond an assertion by officials, who subsequently released him, that they had arrested him for his own well in case he caught the Covid (in the middle) of the crowd”. “We don’t consider that to be a credible explanation,” he added.