5 ms·

Police Barged into My Room While I Was Covering Fujian Chemical Spill

156 points by danso 8y ago

knodi123 8y ago
It sounds like the police suspected something beyond what she was actually doing. I mean, I'm aware of "the TV drama cliche of police nabbing suspects in hotel rooms" - but in this they just searched the rooms of her hotel room - including the window ledge - but they didn't confiscate her photos or search her belongings? It seems more like they were looking for a specific person, instead of trying to intimidate directly. I'm aware of how intimidating this must have been, but they didn't say things like "show us the photos you took", or "don't discuss what you saw or else", or anything like that. She was already going to be leaving the town... Or did they maybe want to catch her in the act of having sex with someone so they could blackmail her? There's a strong implication that she suspected something else nefarious was being planned, which is why she kept turning down "too obvious" offers of exactly what she was in town for- but based on the behavior of the police who presumably did whatever they intended to do, it's not clear to me exactly what nefarious plan she wound up avoiding. All in all, this is more confusing to me than anything else.
- dd36 8y ago
  Intimidation.
  - knodi123 8y ago
    but it was local police, right? And it was entirely by implication? Wouldn't that be like a new zealander visiting the LA and doing something the Bloods don't like, and so the bloods barge into his hotel room on the night before he returns to new zealand and says "hey is anybody else here"? Like, what's the intimidation? He's about to be beyond their reach, and they didn't even say anything explicitly. If it's intimidation, it's both lame, ham handed, and ineffective. An explanation that doesn't fit your opponent's behavior COULD still be correct, but maybe there's a better explanation - I don't know.
    - uyghur 8y ago
      All police in China are political.
    - jarvl 8y ago
      The intimidation is the police demonstrating their ability to intrude in her hotel room as they please. If the police wanted to take anything or hurt her, they could. They want her to relive that moment any time she performs an investigation the state may not agree with.
      - Jwarder 8y ago
        Any intimidation might also be aimed at potential informants. A journalist might see this action as a sign to dig in deeper, but an informant might see this as proof that the local authorities will know if you try to spill the beans.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      "We could've killed you, don't come back here" is a pretty effective intimidation tactic.
    - hummingurban 8y ago
      your whatboutism to compare a street gang to justify the Chinese intimidation. That's a horrible comparison. A street gang actually don't touch civilians because it attracts negative attention and feud with other Crips members. The Chinese leadership will kill as many civilians it needs because it is the only gang in town. Unchecked power at the hands of the few results in catastrophic consequences for the citizens. I'm sure they've learned their lesson from Cultural Revolution but unable to apply those lessons because those checks and balances, once again, is unavailable because Xi decided he wants to be like Putin. My only immediate concern is for the people of China. If Russia is a model of what a nuclear armed dictator with an inferiority complex, there's no limit to what Xi can do to his country. He's already half way there, destroying the economy and the rivals to consolidate power. He doesn't care about the well being or the economy of the country. If he did, his actions would show otherwise.
    - 8y ago
- danielvf 8y ago
  My guess is that they thought she had an insider giving her tips / interviews, and they were trying to catch this person. Though the the surveillance and offers of transportation/"help" throughout the article appear to be about her, I think the real desire was to see who it was that she talked to and what they said.
- eiaoa 8y ago
  > It seems more like they were looking for a specific person, instead of trying to intimidate directly. That idea doesn't make any sense. They didn't search other rooms, and this person was a journalist that was covering a story that's more than likely embarrassing to one of their superiors. It seems like they wanted to threaten and intimidate her in a deniable way. Their excuse was flimsy by design.
- justin66 8y ago
  Why do you feel the need to manufacture theories that are unsupported by facts when the reality, intimidation by police, is bad enough?
  - knodi123 8y ago
    I'm trying to manufacture a theory that better fits all the facts. Intimidation is a simple theory, and acceptable as a fallback, but if that's all that was going on, then it raises some questions.
    - eiaoa 8y ago
      > I'm trying to manufacture a theory that better fits all the facts. Intimidation is a simple theory, and acceptable as a fallback, but if that's all that was going on, then it raises some questions. You definitely seem like you're trying to manufacture a theory, but nothing you've written "better fits all the facts." At best, I think you're operating under a set of faulty assumptions that's causing you to mistakenly reject most likely explanation.
module0000 8y ago
This sounds unpleasant...but I don't know why she rejected their offers so many times. If you don't seem suspicious at first, why shun all attempts at "official" contact? I'm not saying that it's her fault or anything of that nature, just that it might have went a bit smoother if she had been more forthcoming(whether or not she was compelled to). That must have been frightening though to suddenly have the fuzz at the foot of your bed though - very uncool of law enforcement to behave that way. Perhaps that's not as out of the norm as it seems to me(someone from the West).
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  Because she was a journalist? In many countries its not necessary to report your activities to authorities, for fear they will attempt to coerce journalists. Which seems like what happened in this case - a scare tactic
- uyghur 8y ago
  Nice try chinese government.
- lobotryas 8y ago
  If you were covering mafia killings, would you agree to a friendly interview offer from the local Don?
- sirmike_ 8y ago
  Uhhh! She had every right. Free will. No other reasons need to be given. I’m not debating with you I’m just shocked that you would posit such a silly statement “but I don't know why she rejected their offers so many times.”
  - yorwba 8y ago
    Of course she had the right and doesn't have to explain herself, but it would certainly have been informative if she'd done so. Maybe she thought that listening to the official story would be a waste of time and that they would only try to pressure her. But knowing where the official story differs from what she personally observed, and what kind of changes in her reporting they'd have demanded, would have been interesting in itself.
baybal2 8y ago
Pro-tip: look for small, cash only hotels. Those "uncly Liu inn" style lodgings are easy to find in rural areas. If they are cash only, and not issuing fapiaos, it means that they have no formal registration. For travel, mopeds are not required to have number plates, and are not triggering number plate scanners. Cash only intercity buses also likely running informally. Tickets for regular rail are also available for cash, but lately there are reports of police doing ID checks on trains. Telling this as helpful tips to avoid excess attention from police as a foreigner in China. Living in a big city with sizeable foreigner population is relatively easy. The only "minor" inconvenience you encounter are occasional 4am police visits to check your ID, and a broken door if you happened to be out during them. While in smaller towns, you can easily be one of, say, 20 foreigners in town, and the police attention to you will be much more "personalised." Also, get a Chinese name. It is said that foreigners with Chinese names get way less attention than people with non-Chinese names.
- calimac 8y ago
  Good point baybal2. the only effective countermeasure is to avoid detection.
- gpm 8y ago
  Are these tips, apart from the Chinese name part, actually a good idea? They sound like ways to stand out and be flagged by algorithms as interesting as quickly as possible. If I (a foreigner) enter the country and don't check in to a hotel to sleep that seems like it should be a red flag. If the authorities are tracking every usual way of traveling from point A to point B, and I move from point A to point B without using one that seems like a red flag. Assuming all these collection processes are going to a central database somewhere, both of those things seem to be very easy queries to make.
  - baybal2 8y ago
    You have to check in within 24h from arrival for sure, at least for a single day, that's the legal requirement. Everything after that is up to you. They don't know much besides the fact that you did check in, your ID, and your photo. That advice is more for people who are living in China, and don't want to be the next in line in the "and then, they came for" when they simply happen to travel to countryside. The fact that so much of surveillance is automated, means that you risk of setting of some "smart spy detector" increases the more you do anything that leaves any digital trail. This way, if you don't leave any paper trail, that "smart spy detector" simply don't have any data to flag you with.
calimac 8y ago
The commenter's critique of the authors handling of the situation demonstrates the lack of comprehension of the way things work in China.
cascom 8y ago
this is sad, but I find that fact that the harassment level was so mild the more surprising aspect
- creep 8y ago
  I don't. This person is a journalist. If you want to stop a journalist from writing a story, you kill them or you intimidate them. China's already under intense public scrutiny. Killing a journalist, especially one who has already published the story in question, would be incredibly unwise! One could rough her up but in most of these encounters she was in public. Many times they tried to get her alone. But she refused and had already published the story when they entered her hotel room. A beating would have been equally as unwise as killing her. Anything more intimidating than barging into her hotel room would have been a huge disaster for the Chinese government.
Stratoscope 8y ago
Chinese police apologise after Caixin reporter’s ‘prostitution bust’ hotel room inspection https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2174190/chinese-police-apologise-after-caixin-reporters-prostitution-bust https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2174190/chin...

156 points by danso 8y ago

It sounds like the police suspected something beyond what she was actually doing. I mean, I'm aware of "the TV drama cliche of police nabbing suspects in hotel rooms" - but in this they just searched the rooms of her hotel room - including the window ledge - but they didn't confiscate her photos or search her belongings? It seems more like they were looking for a specific person, instead of trying to intimidate directly. I'm aware of how intimidating this must have been, but they didn't say things like "show us the photos you took", or "don't discuss what you saw or else", or anything like that. She was already going to be leaving the town... Or did they maybe want to catch her in the act of having sex with someone so they could blackmail her? There's a strong implication that she suspected something else nefarious was being planned, which is why she kept turning down "too obvious" offers of exactly what she was in town for- but based on the behavior of the police who presumably did whatever they intended to do, it's not clear to me exactly what nefarious plan she wound up avoiding. All in all, this is more confusing to me than anything else.

dd36 8y ago
Intimidation.
- knodi123 8y ago
  but it was local police, right? And it was entirely by implication? Wouldn't that be like a new zealander visiting the LA and doing something the Bloods don't like, and so the bloods barge into his hotel room on the night before he returns to new zealand and says "hey is anybody else here"? Like, what's the intimidation? He's about to be beyond their reach, and they didn't even say anything explicitly. If it's intimidation, it's both lame, ham handed, and ineffective. An explanation that doesn't fit your opponent's behavior COULD still be correct, but maybe there's a better explanation - I don't know.
  - uyghur 8y ago
    All police in China are political.
  - jarvl 8y ago
    The intimidation is the police demonstrating their ability to intrude in her hotel room as they please. If the police wanted to take anything or hurt her, they could. They want her to relive that moment any time she performs an investigation the state may not agree with.
    - Jwarder 8y ago
      Any intimidation might also be aimed at potential informants. A journalist might see this action as a sign to dig in deeper, but an informant might see this as proof that the local authorities will know if you try to spill the beans.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    "We could've killed you, don't come back here" is a pretty effective intimidation tactic.
  - hummingurban 8y ago
    your whatboutism to compare a street gang to justify the Chinese intimidation. That's a horrible comparison. A street gang actually don't touch civilians because it attracts negative attention and feud with other Crips members. The Chinese leadership will kill as many civilians it needs because it is the only gang in town. Unchecked power at the hands of the few results in catastrophic consequences for the citizens. I'm sure they've learned their lesson from Cultural Revolution but unable to apply those lessons because those checks and balances, once again, is unavailable because Xi decided he wants to be like Putin. My only immediate concern is for the people of China. If Russia is a model of what a nuclear armed dictator with an inferiority complex, there's no limit to what Xi can do to his country. He's already half way there, destroying the economy and the rivals to consolidate power. He doesn't care about the well being or the economy of the country. If he did, his actions would show otherwise.
  - 8y ago
danielvf 8y ago
My guess is that they thought she had an insider giving her tips / interviews, and they were trying to catch this person. Though the the surveillance and offers of transportation/"help" throughout the article appear to be about her, I think the real desire was to see who it was that she talked to and what they said.
eiaoa 8y ago
> It seems more like they were looking for a specific person, instead of trying to intimidate directly. That idea doesn't make any sense. They didn't search other rooms, and this person was a journalist that was covering a story that's more than likely embarrassing to one of their superiors. It seems like they wanted to threaten and intimidate her in a deniable way. Their excuse was flimsy by design.
justin66 8y ago
Why do you feel the need to manufacture theories that are unsupported by facts when the reality, intimidation by police, is bad enough?
- knodi123 8y ago
  I'm trying to manufacture a theory that better fits all the facts. Intimidation is a simple theory, and acceptable as a fallback, but if that's all that was going on, then it raises some questions.
  - eiaoa 8y ago
    > I'm trying to manufacture a theory that better fits all the facts. Intimidation is a simple theory, and acceptable as a fallback, but if that's all that was going on, then it raises some questions. You definitely seem like you're trying to manufacture a theory, but nothing you've written "better fits all the facts." At best, I think you're operating under a set of faulty assumptions that's causing you to mistakenly reject most likely explanation.

module0000 8y ago

This sounds unpleasant...but I don't know why she rejected their offers so many times. If you don't seem suspicious at first, why shun all attempts at "official" contact? I'm not saying that it's her fault or anything of that nature, just that it might have went a bit smoother if she had been more forthcoming(whether or not she was compelled to). That must have been frightening though to suddenly have the fuzz at the foot of your bed though - very uncool of law enforcement to behave that way. Perhaps that's not as out of the norm as it seems to me(someone from the West).

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
Because she was a journalist? In many countries its not necessary to report your activities to authorities, for fear they will attempt to coerce journalists. Which seems like what happened in this case - a scare tactic
uyghur 8y ago
Nice try chinese government.
lobotryas 8y ago
If you were covering mafia killings, would you agree to a friendly interview offer from the local Don?
sirmike_ 8y ago
Uhhh! She had every right. Free will. No other reasons need to be given. I’m not debating with you I’m just shocked that you would posit such a silly statement “but I don't know why she rejected their offers so many times.”
- yorwba 8y ago
  Of course she had the right and doesn't have to explain herself, but it would certainly have been informative if she'd done so. Maybe she thought that listening to the official story would be a waste of time and that they would only try to pressure her. But knowing where the official story differs from what she personally observed, and what kind of changes in her reporting they'd have demanded, would have been interesting in itself.

baybal2 8y ago

Pro-tip: look for small, cash only hotels. Those "uncly Liu inn" style lodgings are easy to find in rural areas. If they are cash only, and not issuing fapiaos, it means that they have no formal registration. For travel, mopeds are not required to have number plates, and are not triggering number plate scanners. Cash only intercity buses also likely running informally. Tickets for regular rail are also available for cash, but lately there are reports of police doing ID checks on trains. Telling this as helpful tips to avoid excess attention from police as a foreigner in China. Living in a big city with sizeable foreigner population is relatively easy. The only "minor" inconvenience you encounter are occasional 4am police visits to check your ID, and a broken door if you happened to be out during them. While in smaller towns, you can easily be one of, say, 20 foreigners in town, and the police attention to you will be much more "personalised." Also, get a Chinese name. It is said that foreigners with Chinese names get way less attention than people with non-Chinese names.

calimac 8y ago
Good point baybal2. the only effective countermeasure is to avoid detection.
gpm 8y ago
Are these tips, apart from the Chinese name part, actually a good idea? They sound like ways to stand out and be flagged by algorithms as interesting as quickly as possible. If I (a foreigner) enter the country and don't check in to a hotel to sleep that seems like it should be a red flag. If the authorities are tracking every usual way of traveling from point A to point B, and I move from point A to point B without using one that seems like a red flag. Assuming all these collection processes are going to a central database somewhere, both of those things seem to be very easy queries to make.
- baybal2 8y ago
  You have to check in within 24h from arrival for sure, at least for a single day, that's the legal requirement. Everything after that is up to you. They don't know much besides the fact that you did check in, your ID, and your photo. That advice is more for people who are living in China, and don't want to be the next in line in the "and then, they came for" when they simply happen to travel to countryside. The fact that so much of surveillance is automated, means that you risk of setting of some "smart spy detector" increases the more you do anything that leaves any digital trail. This way, if you don't leave any paper trail, that "smart spy detector" simply don't have any data to flag you with.

calimac 8y ago

The commenter's critique of the authors handling of the situation demonstrates the lack of comprehension of the way things work in China.

cascom 8y ago

this is sad, but I find that fact that the harassment level was so mild the more surprising aspect

creep 8y ago
I don't. This person is a journalist. If you want to stop a journalist from writing a story, you kill them or you intimidate them. China's already under intense public scrutiny. Killing a journalist, especially one who has already published the story in question, would be incredibly unwise! One could rough her up but in most of these encounters she was in public. Many times they tried to get her alone. But she refused and had already published the story when they entered her hotel room. A beating would have been equally as unwise as killing her. Anything more intimidating than barging into her hotel room would have been a huge disaster for the Chinese government.

Stratoscope 8y ago

Chinese police apologise after Caixin reporter’s ‘prostitution bust’ hotel room inspection https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2174190/chinese-police-apologise-after-caixin-reporters-prostitution-bust https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2174190/chin...