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Reporter locked up and beaten by police

By Chen Jia (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-20 09:24

Zhang Jinxing's face is bruised. [China Daily]

Police beat a journalist and detained him for 10 hours for attempting to record a car accident with his camera on Sunday night in Luoyang of central China's Henan province.

"The wounds on my head and back still hurt and I can't feel my swollen wrists because the handcuffs were too tight," Zhang Jinxing, a journalist with Luoyang Broadcasting News, told China Daily in a telephone interview Monday after he was released.

The procuratorate said on Monday they have placed the incident on file for investigation, according to Zhang.

Zhang is cuffed to an iron chair. [China Daily]

"No one told me where and why I was illegally locked up for the whole night, even when I yelled for someone to begin questioning me in accordance with legal procedure," he said.

A friend of Zhang's, who was trying to protect him from the police beating, was also beaten and chained up in the corridor outside the room, he said.

Zhang said he was passing by a traffic accident involving three cars near his home around 10 pm on Sunday with his friend.

Local police from Xibeiyu police station stopped him from taking photos.

He quarreled with the police, who took away his camera and mobile phone, and he then was beaten by four or five policemen.

The legs of Zhang's friend are seriously bruised due to an alleged beating by local police. [China Daily/Cao Fuchuan]

"They kicked my head and I lost consciousness on the street. When I woke up I was locked in an iron chair in a dark room," he recalled.

"I heard some stories about police detaining people without enough evidence or excuse, letting them leave after family members pay a fine but I never imagined it could happen to me when I told them I was a journalist," he said.

He was released early Monday when his superiors from the paper came to the station.

He suffered many bruises and his wrists are too swollen to work because of the handcuffs, he said.

The local police bureau did not comment Monday.

Zhang said the car accident occurred in the same place where a police car hit a passenger in June.

"That's why I insisted on taking photos to remind local traffic police to install more cameras for citizens' safety," he said.

"I just did my job!"