A television producer working for the Columbia Broadcasting Corporation (CBS) has been detained by Chinese police in Beijing, shortly before she was to leave China for the US. Last June she interviewed a Chinese dissident.
Ms Natalie Liu (32) had just completed a year working in the US network's bureau as a freelance associate producer. The police confiscated video equipment, notebooks and photographs from her apartment.
The journalist telephoned her husband, Mr Zhao Haiching, in Bethesda, Maryland, on her mobile telephone to say that 14 uniformed officers searched her apartment, videotaped the search and handcuffed her in front of the couple's two children, aged three and five. The children are now in the care of the journalist's mother, who lives in Beijing, diplomatic sources said.
A call to Ms Liu's mobile telephone number got an automated voice saying: "Sorry, the subscriber is cut off."
The US embassy confirmed yesterday evening that representations had been made to the Chinese authorities. Ms Liu, who holds a Chinese passport in the name of Liu Qingyan is a legal permanent resident of the US. During President Clinton's visit in June, Ms Liu organised a CBS interview with a senior Communist Party official jailed over the pro-democracy protest nine years ago.
Mr Bao Tong (68), who was imprisoned for seven years for supporting the Tiananmen Square student demonstrators, is officially barred from talking to foreign correspondents. He said he had been told that foreign reporters who talked to him without permission would be punished and "in turn my life and health would be affected." He told CBS: "According to the constitution I have freedom of speech. Let's see if I get into trouble after your interview with me today." Mr Bao was not detained after the interview was broadcast.
Mr Zhao, a businessman, said in Bethesda: "My heart is almost shattered. My wife and children were supposed to fly back to the United States next Monday."