China Exclusive: Policemen investigated over assault on undercover journalists

Fifteen policemen in south China's Guangdong Province are under investigation after allegedly beating undercover journalists covering an official dinner that apparently flouted the country's ban on extravagant meals.

Journalists with the Southern Metropolis Daily (SMD) want to report on public security officials feasting in a high-end restaurant in Shenzhen City last week, according to the newspaper. The SMD said the reporters were beaten and had their mobile phones and cameras robbed, and that police who arrived at the scene later helped the officials get away.

Twenty-eight people were served giant salamander at the Jan.-21 dinner, which cost about 5,400 yuan (864 U.S. dollars), according to the SMD. The reporters were then hit in the face after revealing their identity to the officials, said the paper.

Giant salamander is a protected endangered specimen in China, but the policemen said what they had at the dinner was artificially-bred.

The report added that police from the Dongshen branch of the Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau took only the journalists for questioning after the incident, and refused the reporters' request to see the restaurant's surveillance video.

In response to the scandal, the Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau said on microblog Sina Weibo on Monday that the incident took place at Shenzhen's Mingzhu Restaurant, to which Wang Yinghang, a retired policeman from the bureau, had invited his former colleagues. According to the short statement, three undercover reporters from the SMD scuffled with people at the dinner.

The bureau said that 14 of the 15 policemen implicated in the case have been suspended and are under internal investigation, while Wang Yuanping, head of its Dongshen branch, is under police investigation on suspicion of "disciplinary violations."

It also promised an education campaign to ensure policemen abide by the law and "have a correct work style."

China launched a "mass-line" campaign in June 2013 to strengthen ties between officials and the general public by cleaning up undesirable work styles such as formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance. However, there has been suspicion of officials surreptitiously dining extravagantly. So it is no surprise this incident, which has made a splash on the Internet, has aroused corruption accusations among the public.

The vague statement has done little to ease such concerns, as it did not say whether the 15 policemen are those who attended the dinner or those who helped the suspects escape, nor did it elaborate on what their suspected violations are.

"What exactly are the 'violations'? Did the police help the officials get away?" was a typical comment on Weibo.

Many members of the public have demanded a thorough investigation with the results publicized.

This is not the first time that officials have been accused of violence against journalists in China. In mid-2014, three people in the central Hubei Province were detained by police over allegations that they had beaten a journalist who went undercover to report on a lavish dinner held by a village official.

In 2013, civil servants in Liaoyang of northeast China's Liaoning Province injured a journalist who had covered housing disputes in the city. Endi