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Viral video captures the moment Chinese authorities physically drag away reporter during Olympics live shot
Image source: Twitter video screenshot

Viral video captures the moment Chinese authorities physically drag away reporter during Olympics live shot

A Dutch reporter was physically manhandled and forced off the air during a live shot as he covered the Beijing Olympics.

What are the details?

Sjoerd den Daas, the Greater China/East Asia correspondent for Dutch public broadcaster NOS, was pulled off camera by Chinese guards as he reported live on Friday from the Beijing Olympics.

Video captured the moment Chinese guards dragged away den Daas — who was standing in front of the National Stadium — and blocked the camera.

"We are now being pulled out of here," den Daas said while still on camera. "We have just been expelled from another area, so I'm afraid we'll have to come back to you later."

“Our correspondent @sjoerddendaas was pulled away from the camera by security guards at 12:00 pm live in the NOS Journaal," NOS tweeted Friday, shortly after the video began gaining traction. "Unfortunately, this is increasingly becoming a daily reality for journalists in China. He is fine and was able to finish his story a few minutes later.”

The Daily Mail reported Friday, “The interruption came from a man wearing a black jacket and a red band around the sleeve which appears to distinguish him a ‘Public Security Volunteer,’ a citizen-led neighborhood watch established to help police maintain order.”

The opening ceremony for the 2022 Beijing Olympics is under way.

The original video has been viewed more than 200,000 times at the time of this reporting.

What else?

NOS editor in chief Marcel Gelauff said that the incident is a blatantly "painful illustration" of how foreign press is treated in the communist state.

"Sjoerd has often told and shown that it is difficult as a journalist in China," he told Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad, according to a report from Insider. "There is a far-reaching tendency to curtail freedoms, and this may be even stronger because of [COVID-19]," said Gelauff.

"I haven't spoken to Sjoerd yet, but from what I saw on the images I didn't get the idea that he was in the way," Dabbled added.

The 2022 Olympics kicked off on Friday despite ongoing outrage over the genocide and crimes against humanity taking place in Xinjiang.

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