More info here. What a frigging disgrace. Where do they find all these thugs? And somebody train the propaganda department to come up with more believable lies.
Transcript (from full video)
So when we try and make contact with these underground churches, we start to see the same people hanging around us wherever we go. From the moment we arrive in this province we’re being watched, presumably because the authorities knew we were coming after having tapped our phones and read our emails. Every trip to the shop, every walk down the street means being tailed by plainclothes agents. And though we have a lot of new friends, some of these faces will start to become very familiar.
Driving also means being followed by the black Hondas of the local security services. At one point, we’re tailed for four hours in between cities and no matter what obscure part of this province we visit, they go with us.
You might think that around 2 dozen officers using 6 cars would be what you’d need for say a major homicide investigation or to break up a drug ring, but that’s the number of plainclothes agents we’ve spotted so far who’ve been tailing us down here.
So the Chinese Government is prepared to throw that level of resources into monitoring a few journalists who’ve done nothing more than try to make contact with some underground Christians.
After being pursued for five days we decide to go up and ask these agents why they’ve been following us. On this day they’re waiting for us in the foyer of our hotel like they have been every day.
(to agents) “Hello there. Why have you been following us?”
AGENT: “What are you saying? What are you saying?
MCDONELL: “Why have you been following us? Who are you?”
AGENT: (slaps Stephen) “When did I follow you? Who are you?”
MCDONELL: “Who are you?”
AGENT: (lashes out at camera)
MCDONELL: “We don’t know who you are.”
AGENT: “Who are you? Why are you filming me?” (pushing Stephen)
MCDONELL: “Why do you… ?”
AGENT: (lashing out at Stephen) “I’m asking who you are. Who are you? Excuse me?”
MCDONELL: (to hotel staff) “Can you please ring the police?”
AGENT: “Why are you filming my client?”
MCDONELL: They clearly enjoy the anonymity of spying on others to being filmed themselves.
(in hotel foyer) Well we’ve just approached these people who’ve been following us and had quite an extreme reaction from them. Now we’ve asked the hotel people here to call the normal police to come here for our own protection and there’s no sign that they’re coming so we don’t know quite what to do. I don’t trust who these people are. Actually they’re going over to our car now to ask questions there so yeah we don’t know quite what to do.
Outside the hotel the pushing and shoving continues as we wait for the uniformed police. The official story, which will be conveyed to us by the local authorities – is that these men were having a simple business meeting in the hotel when we interrupted them, that they’re not government agents and that they haven’t been following us – but our footage doesn’t lie.
Here’s one man in the foyer of the hotel and here he is watching us in the city the day before. Here’s another in the hotel and here he is also following us in the city. We’re given a government directive to erase our footage because apparently we’ve unfairly accused these men, but we manage to hang on to it.
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