Bruce Haring, Deadline
Feb 5, 20222 min
Chinese authorities interrupted a Dutch journalist’s live report on the Winter Olympics Friday, dragging him off-camera and creating confusion as to why his broadcast was halted.
The live standup outside the National Stadium saw Sjoerd den Daas, a correspondent for Dutch outlet NOS Nieuws, manhandled by a volunteer security guard in plainclothes and a red arm band.
The officer stopped den Daas’s attempt to continue, yelling over him and forcing him to stop. Several other guards watched the incident standing nearby, but it was unclear as to why the broadcast was stopped.
“When asked, they couldn’t say what we had done wrong,” the reporter wrote in a series of tweets.
“In recent weeks, we, like several foreign colleagues, have been hindered or stopped several times by the police while reporting on subjects related to the Games,” he continued. “Therefore, it’s hard to see last night’s incident as an isolated incident, as the IOC claims, although such interference rarely happens live on broadcast. And now back to work.”
China’s staging of the Winter Olympics was already under a cloud because of allegations of human rights violations and mistreatment of Chinese athletes. Many leaders from Democratic countries opted out of attending the games, with most citing the treatment of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang province.
US President Joe Biden, whose wife First Lady Dr. Jill Biden attended the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in Japan, did not attend the Opening Ceremony in Beijing.
Chinese authorities have also taken a heavy hand with its Covid-free policies, which are attempting to keep the virus under control. Chinese authorities have constructed a vast network of bubbles, known officially as the “closed loop,” to separate athletes from Beijing.
Despite those precautions, more than 300 coronavirus cases — about a third of them linked to athletes and team officials — have been detected in Beijing’s recent Olympic arrivals.
(c) 2022, Deadline
https://deadline.com/2022/02/winter-olympics-dutch-journalist-dragged-during-live-shot-1234927284/