China claims Australian police raided homes of Chinese reporters

In the wake of two Australian journalists being rushed out of China by their news organisations over fears they were no longer safe, the nation’s state run media have claimed Chinese journalists were subjected to similar treatment while working here. The ABC’s Bill Birtles and The Australian Financial Review’s Michael Smith were the final two Australian correspondents working in China, but were flown out of the country on Monday night after local police demanded interviews with both journalists.

The pair had been questioned separately by China’s Ministry of State security after carrying out normal reporting duties, in what the AFR’s editor in chief labelled regrettable and disturbing.

But multiple Chinese media stories have now claimed Australian anti-foreign interference investigators targeted four Chinese state media journalists who were working in Australia in June, raiding their homes and seizing their phones and laptops, Birtles wrote in a tweet this morning.

Such behaviour severely infringed on the legitimate rights of Chinese journalists and the incident exposed Australia’s hypocrisy in upholding so called freedom of the press’ experts said in a article in Chinese tabloid the Global Timessaid claiming they’d been informed of the raids by a source close to the matter. Australia flagrantly infringed on the legitimate rights and interests of journalists from Chinese media and institutions in Australia in the name of a possible violation of Australia’s anti-foreign interference law, seriously disrupting the normal and people-to-people exchanges between China and Australia, poisoning relations, the source said, noting that it was a serious political incident.

The Times accused Australia of hypocrisy and double standards calling the alleged acts against the Chinese journalists brutal and barbaric. Chinese news service Xinhua is also running a report of the raids, headlined White terror in Australia, the AFRreports. The Xinhua story alleges the raids were conducted in connection with the foreign interference investigation that led to raids on NSW Labor MP Shaoquett Mosalmane’s home and Parliament House office on June 26, over claims his office had been infiltrated by Chinese agents. It is understood the Chinese embassy has complained about the raids to the Federal Government.

According to Nine News’ Political Editor Chris Uhlmann, they were told they were people of interest in the high profile Australian journalist Cheng Lei’s case. Ms Cheng, a prominent anchor on state-owned English news channel China Global Television Network (CGTN), has been detained in China for weeks.

Speaking to media at the airport yesterday morning, Birtles said it was very disappointing to leave the country under those circumstances. But it’s a relief to be back in a country with genuine rule of law,.

The ABC organised flights back to Australia for Birtles last Thursday morning, however increasingly threatening behaviour from Chinese officials peaked before he could leave.