UK court drops charges of assault against Chinese reporter
A court in Britain has decided to drop a case against a female reporter for China state TV who was charged with assault on an activist during this year's Conservative Party annual conference in Birmingham.
England's state prosecutors, known as the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said Wednesday that Kong Linlin, 48, would not face proceedings at Birmingham Crown Court as it had been anticipated, adding that there was insufficient material to secure a conviction against the journalist.
“This case was originally charged by the police,” a CPS spokeswoman said, adding, “The CPS subsequently reviewed the available evidence and determined it was insufficient to provide a realistic prospect of conviction and therefore discontinued the case.”
Kong, a female reporter working for China Central Television (CCTV) in London, was accused by police of assaulting a delegate during a meeting of a committee of the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham on September 30. A video posted online allegedly showed Kong slapping an activist helping at the conference.
However, Chinese media said at the time that Kong had become angry over remarks made in the event about Hong Kong. The local media praised the reporter for her brave defending of China’s sovereignty over the city state.
Chinese Embassy had issued a statement after Kong was forced out of the event, saying the ejection was “completely unacceptable”. It defended Kong and said it was in fact the party activists who assaulted her.
“In a country that boasts freedom of speech, it is puzzling that the Chinese journalist should encounter obstruction in such a way and even assault at the fringe event when she simply raised a question and expressed her opinions,” the Embassy said in its statement following the incident.
Chinese authorities had also called the initial decision to charge Kong as “shocking and confusing”.
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