Chinese TV reporter arrested in the UK for slapping a delegate at meeting about Hong Kong

CCTV journalist Kong Linlin at a Conservative Party meeting last year. Screengrab via Facebook video.
CCTV journalist Kong Linlin at a Conservative Party meeting last year. Screengrab via Facebook video.

Police in England have arrested a Chinese journalist who allegedly slapped a delegate at Britain’s Conservative Party conference during a session on Hong Kong, according to reports.

The journalist, identified as Kong Linlin, a reporter for state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), allegedly hit conference attendee Enoch Lieu after he asked her to leave the session for heckling speakers, the latter said on social media .

Video of the incident on Sunday was uploaded in full on the Facebook page of Hong Kong watch, a UK-based NGO that monitors the human rights and rule of law situation in Hong Kong.

Lieu, a 24-year-old Tory party activist born in Hong Kong but schooled in Britain, described the incident on his Twitter account, saying it occured at the end event of the event focusing on “China’s continued suppression of Hong Kong’s human rights”.

The session, he said, featured ousted Hong Kong lawmaker Nathan Law discussing his time in prison over the 2014 Umbrella Movement protests, and Hong Kong University law professor Benny Tai talking about China’s “sharp and hard power” in Hong Kong.

He said, as the event finished, the woman — who was wearing a press pass — began to shout at Benedict Rogers, Hong Kong Watch’s chairman and a human rights campaigner who has been outspoken about the suppression of political freedom in Hong Kong.

https://twitter.com/enochcafe/status/1046487351831269376

She accused him of “trying to separate China” while also saying the rest of the panel were “puppets and fake Chinese”.

Lieu said member of parliament Fiona Bruce asked her to “calm down” and, when she didn’t, he approached her and told her “she had made her point and was no longer welcome”.

“The reporter continued her shouting and whilst I was trying to escort her out, she accused me of trying to silence her. Then I said no miss you have to go. All of a sudden, she slapped me in my face,” he tweeted.

“The audience was shocked and some brave men and women came and tried to escort her out. During the struggle, she continued her shouting and refused to leave, then out of the blue again, slapped me again.”

The woman, wrote Lieu, was escorted away by police, whom, he alleged, she also tried to slap.

Police confirmed they were called to the venue at about 2:30pm after reports of a disturbance. They said a “48-year-old woman from King’s Cross in London was arrested on suspicion of common assault.”  The woman was released while the investigation continues.

Beijing’s embassy in London, however, went on the attack over the incident, according to AFP. On Monday they demanded an apology over how the CCTV reporter was treated.

Chinese state broadcaster CGTN in a statement said China Central Television reporter Kong Linlin “was blocked and assaulted when she raised a question and expressed her opinion”.

It quoted a CCTV spokesperson saying it was “unacceptable” and called for an apology from organisers, urging British police to “protect her legitimate rights”.

Asked if the party planned to apologise, a Conservative Party spokesman said: “The individual concerned was removed from the conference centre and has had their pass revoked”.

Law was among several attendees to take to Twitter to criticize the CCTV report’s behavior.

“Chinese “journalists” who like to claim to have “human rights” while they are abroad and scatter their wilderness will never step up to protect anything in the name of human rights in their own country,” he wrote.

With AFP



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