China: Journalist detained after reporting on destruction of crosses
Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang detained and questioned a Hong Kong journalist who went to cover a story about the demolition of church crosses in the region.
Jiang Yannan, a reporter for the Hong Kong-based Chinese-language news magazine Asiaweek told RFA’s Mandarin Service that she was detained briefly in Pingyang county near Wenzhou, a city that has been dubbed “China’s Jerusalem” because of a high concentration of Christian believers there.
Sanjijang Church CCL Facebook photo
“I was here to do some reporting and interviews on the demolition of crosses [on Christian churches] … They didn’t hold me for very long. They just stopped me from interviewing people.”
She said police had continued to monitor her movements and contact her interviewees since her release after a brief period of detention at a nearby police station.
“I didn’t pay any attention to them, but they asked me what I was doing,” Jiang said. “They have been following me and bothering the people I am trying to interview…I did a lot of interviews on this trip, and this time the local authorities are being much tougher [on journalists].”
Jiang, who arrived in Pingyang earlier this week, told RFA in a later interview that she had already left the province.
“I am no longer in Zhejiang. I have left the area,” she said. “They were following me the whole time.”
“But it’s not convenient for me to give interviews right now,” Jiang said, before hanging up.
According to the US-based Christian rights group China Aid, hundreds of Protestant churches in Zhejiang have been targeted for demolition in the past year.
The actions against churches in Zhejiang are all connected to the province’s “Three Rectifications and One Demolition” campaign, which claims to target all illegal structures, the group said in a recent report on its website.
The campaign calls on local officials to take action to “demolish illegal structures that violate laws and regulations, occupy farmland, affect public safety and major construction, seriously affect urban and rural planning, and those that are located on both sides of main lines of transportation,” it said.
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