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Cop organizes beating of investigative reporter
(Shanghai Daily)
Updated: 2006-01-16 09:40
A police official in Xi'an who organized a severe beating of a reporter
received a severe warning from the Communist Party plus administrative demerits.
The reporter was collecting evidence that minors, who are legally banned, are
allowed in a Lanjingling bar where they play video games.
The attack, which took place on Friday, was reported by the Xi'an-based
Chinese Business View newspaper.
The bar belongs to the police official's wife who tried to stop the reporter
from taking photos and threw him out of the bar.
The major attack was organized shortly after the bar incident Friday.
The reporter, surnamed Zhao, on Saturday received an apology from top public
security officials in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province in the northwest.
The police official's wife and bar owner, Hao Li, was ordered held in jail
for seven days. Two of the main attackers will be held for 10 days. The three
will pay for the reporter's medical treatment.
On friday, a man surnamed Heng found that his 14-year-old son was truant and
assumed he was playing video games in Lanjingling bar. He told a reporter that
minors were allowed in the bar. The two men went to the bar to investigate that
morning.
They found about 100 people in the bar, most of them minors - including his
son.
Heng was so angry that he grabbed a keyboard and hit the boy.
Hao li, the bar owner, forced Heng out from the bar with the help of a
patron.
Hao saw that reporter Zhao was taking photos and tried to grab his camera.
Zhao showed her his journalist card, but she persisted.
Zhao tried to call police on his mobile phone but bar patrons took his phone
away. He ran out and called police from a kiosk.
Then he was attacked by six or seven men. Hao's police official husband, Huo
Mengqi, arrived and ordered the men to take Zhao into the bar courtyard where
the beating continued.
Heng, father of the truant boy, was also beaten.
Regular police arrived and ended the violence.
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