The Daily Beast

Goons Drag Reporter Away on Live TV at Beijing Games Opening Ceremony

The Beijing Winter Olympics are officially underway—but, before the Opening Ceremony even finished on Friday, Chinese authorities proved to the world once again that it won’t tolerate any kind of free press.

In an extraordinary clip from Dutch broadcaster NOS, one of its reporters who is in Beijing to cover the Games can be seen being manhandled by a security guard sporting a red armband. The reporter, Sjoerd den Daas, attempted to carry on his broadcast while being grabbed and yelled at by the guard, then NOS decided to cut away back to the studio.

In a post, NOS wrote: “Our correspondent [den Daas] was pulled away from the camera by security guards at 12:00 pm live in the NOS Journaal. 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.”

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

It’s unclear exactly what den Daas did to upset the authorities, but it may have been that he was reporting from a dark street corner rather than from inside the glitzy Bird’s Nest stadium, where the Chinese government was staging an opening ceremony to show off China to the world.

The Dutch tabloid Algemeen Dagbladquoted NOS editor-in-chief Marcel Gelauff as saying the clip was “a painful illustration” of how foreign press is treated in China. “Sjoerd has often told and shown that it is difficult as a journalist in China. There is a far-reaching tendency to curtail freedoms, and this may be even stronger because of corona,” said Gelauff.

(editor：)