Chinese Guards Close in on Foreigner, But Their Thuggish Tactics Backfire When They Fail to Notice One Huge Detail
A group of Chinese security guards approached a journalist Friday, with one laying hands on the reporter to get him away from the Winter Olympics arena. Unfortunately for the uniformed thugs, it seems they failed to notice one important detail.
The camera was on, and rolling for a live international broadcast.
Instead of being pulled by the communist government’s censors, the footage is now out of China’s reach and spreading like wildfire.
The incident kicked off as Dutch public broadcaster NOS was filming a segment near the Beijing Winter Olympics stadium early Friday morning.
Video shows NOS’ China correspondent Sjoerd den Daas speaking outside of the arena before being approached by a uniformed security guard. The guard grabs den Daas and tries to shoo him away.
Den Daas replies in Mandarin and attempts to continue the broadcast, but the guard wasn’t having it and the livestream was ended.
The broadcast was later able to resume elsewhere.
Video of the encounter can be seen below.
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
While seeing this in the western world would be a total shock, thuggish handling of the media like this is a common occurrence in the People’s Republic of China.
Holding total power domestically, the communist Chinese government uses its control to suppress damaging stories and kill embarrassing narratives before they can even bloom.
Although this is nothing new for the country, the thuggish practice first gained the world’s attention in the aftermath of a viral outbreak in the city of Wuhan in late 2019.
China hinted the novel disease, later named COVID-19, originated from exotic bushmeat found at an area wet market, and not a local biolab that dealt in bat coronaviruses. Chinese scientists and others under the auspices of the communist regime worked to distance the lab from the outbreak.
Unfortunately, western scientists and media have not been allowed to launch their own investigations, leaving China’s word the only one on the matter.
The international chicanery has only continued since then, with suppression of stories about an ongoing genocide of the country’s Uyghur population, the destruction of Hong Kong’s independent identity and the country’s menacing actions toward Taiwan.
The ongoing Winter Olympics give athletes and others a massive stage to hold China accountable for the horrors it is perpetuating. While some are taking advantage of this, others are working to keep China happy.
One of the more surprising voices advocating for silence on China’s crimes against humanity is United States Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who ordered athletes to keep quiet while in-country.
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