China apologizes for beating of Japanese journalists+

BEIJING, Aug. 6 Kyodo - China told Japan on Tuesday it regrets Monday's beating by paramilitary police of a reporter and a photographer from two Japanese news organizations covering
the aftermath of a deadly attack on police in northwestern China's restive Xinjiang region.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang made the comment in a response to a
letter of protest from the Japanese Embassy in Beijing earlier in the day, the
embassy said in a statement.
China's state-run Xinhua News Agency, meanwhile, reported the Xinjiang police
and the local foreign affairs department apologized to the reporter and
photographer.
Masami Kawakita, a photographer from the Chunichi Shimbun newspaper, and Shinji
Katsuta, a reporter of Nippon Television Network Corp., both suffered light
injuries in the incident, the two media organizations said separately.
Kawakita, 38, and Katsuta, 37, arrived in Kashgar, a city in the western part
of Xinjiang, late Monday to cover the attack at a police base earlier that day
in which 16 officers were killed and 16 others injured.
Police forcibly disrupted the Japanese journalists' reporting activities near
the base, took them to a room in a nearby hotel and beat them before releasing
them two hours later, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
They said the photographer had his face pushed to the floor at one point, while
some of his equipment was destroyed.
Some members of the Hong Kong media were also detained, they said.
Xinhua said in its report Tuesday afternoon that the Japanese reporters
''clashed with local border police when they tried to film a restricted area
controlled by border police.''
''The two disobeyed the rules,'' the administration secretary of the foreign
affairs office in Kashgar was quoted as saying. ''But we are sorry for the
incident and the damage to the equipment that belonged to the reporters.''
The border police said they would pay for repairing damaged equipment and
medical bills, according to Xinhua.
The Japanese Embassy's statement said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin
told Hisashi Michigami, minister at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, over the
telephone that he was informed about the incident late on Monday.
''We regret what happened at the site,'' Qin was quoted as saying.
Qin also said the Foreign Ministry will continue to make an effort to provide a
''good environment to foreign reporters, including Japanese reporters, based on
rules for the foreign media,'' according to the statement.
As part of its Olympic pledge, China has promised to give international media
complete freedom during the Summer Games.
Beijing implemented temporary media rules from January 2007 that lifted travel
restrictions on foreign correspondents from that month to October 2008. Under
those rules, foreign reporters can interview anyone who has given consent.
The two were among several dozen journalists who arrived in Kashgar late Monday
to cover the attack on the police officers that morning.
According to Xinhua, two Uygur men, aged 28 and 33, were detained after driving
a truck into the group of police officers, hurling explosives and assaulting
them with knives.
The police suspect the incident, which took place only days ahead of the
Olympic Games, was a terrorist attack.
Xinhua reported Tuesday that nine homemade explosive devices and a gun that
were found were similar to items confiscated during a raid in January on a
training camp run by a Muslim separatist group.
Police also found material calling for ''holy war,'' according to the Xinhua
report.
==Kyodo