Chinese reporter wins rare police apology for harassment

The young woman is panting, panicked, her thin arm pointing at four men in police uniforms who had let themselves into her hotel room near midnight.

"You cannot treat me like this," she shouts, her voice high and reeling. "You cannot barge in like this late at night, OK? I didn't do anything illegal." The men, one of whom is carrying a pair of thin white plastic restraints, tell her they are doing a "routine inspection," according to a video of the Nov. 11 incident seen by The Associated Press.

Only there was nothing routine about this. Their target was Zhou Chen, an environmental reporter for Caixin, one of China's most respected business media groups. She was on a reporting trip to Quanzhou, a city in southeastern Fujian province, to investigate a petrochemical leak that sickened more than 50 people.

Journalists in China are routinely tailed and harassed by local authorities, but few especially Chinese reporters publicly discuss the details. Reporters Without Borders ranks China 176 out of 180 in its World Press Freedom Index and says more than 50 journalists and bloggers are detained "in conditions that pose a threat to their lives."