A European journalist covering the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics was dragged away by Chinese law enforcement during a broadcast.
Onze correspondent @sjoerddendaas werd om 12.00u live in het NOS Journaal door beveiligers voor de camera weggetrokken. Helaas is dit steeds vaker de dagelijkse realiteit voor journalisten in China. Hij is in orde en kon zijn verhaal gelukkig een paar minuten later afmaken pic.twitter.com/GLTZRlZV96
— NOS (@NOS) February 4, 2022
Sjoerd den Daas, the Asia correspondent for Dutch broadcast company NOS, was pulled away from his camera Friday by what appeared to be a security guard with a red armband. The guard seemed to yell at den Daas, only for the broadcast to end preemptively, according to video footage of the incident.
“Our correspondent [den Daas] was pulled away from the camera by security guards at 12:00 pm live in the NOS Journal,” the outlet tweeted Friday. “Unfortunately, this is increasingly becoming a daily reality for journalists in China. He is fine and was able to finish his story a few minutes later.”
Based on the footage, it’s unclear what den Daas may have done to prompt Chinese officials to intervene.
NOS Editor-in-Chief Marcel Gelauff told Dutch news outlet Algemeen Dagblad that the clip was a “painful illustration” of how international media outlets were being treated in China.
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Journalists have had to take extreme caution while covering the Beijing Winter Olympics, which began Friday. Several reporters have brought burner phones due to security concerns. China has also isolated several foreign reporters and athletes in a bubble, keeping them away from the general public for quarantine purposes, mandating they use health monitoring apps, and subjecting them to daily COVID-19 tests.
Foreign journalists have faced increasing pressure from Chinese officials, according to a January report released by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China. Journalists endured online trolling, physical assaults, and visa denials, according to the survey.
