China has blamed foreign media for recent scuffles between police and journalists attempting to cover a string of "Jasmine" rallies, inspired by recent uprisings in the Middle East.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told journalists on Tuesday that they should "cooperate" with police and respect the country's laws, after several foreign reporters were roughed up in a crackdown following calls for the anti-government rallies.
"The police provided reasonable guidance, and the journalists should understand and cooperate," Jiang told a regular news briefing in Beijing, apparently referring to warnings to foreign media not to be at the venues for the rallies proposed online.
"If both sides take this attitude, we can minimize the occurrence of such incidents," she said.
"Foreign journalists should respect and abide by China's laws and regulations ... Beijing is a very big city with a large population. It is important to maintain normal order," Jiang added.
She said journalists should "proceed from the need to report news rather than creating news or creating incidents."
Official Chinese media have hit out in recent days at the attention paid by foreign media to the online calls for revolts against corruption and demonstrations for a more accountable government.
The anonymous calls were made in the spirit of the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, which triggered uprisings elsewhere in North Africa and the Middle East.
Security presence
Chinese authorities responded with a strong security presence in major cities, dispatching hundreds of uniformed and plainclothes policemen in areas designated as protest sites in Beijing and Shanghai.
Reports at the weekend said that one American news videographer was kicked and beaten repeatedly in the face with brooms and taken into police custody, while others were detained briefly and roughed up.
An employee who answered the phone at the BBC office in Beijing said that journalists who tried to cover the Jasmine event in Beijing had their hair pulled and that one of them had a leg trapped in a car door.
"The whole intersection was sealed off," the employee said. "You couldn't get in, so our colleagues were shooting some video right there at the intersection, and the police told them they couldn't."
"Then they pushed them, and they continued filming, so they pushed them onto their vehicle, pulling their hair, and trapping one of their legs in the car door, grazing the skin."
Others from Hong Kong and Taiwan were also roughed up, reports said.
Condemn
EU officials, the the U.S. ambassador to China, and journalists' associations and media watchdogs all condemned the treatment of journalists.
The Paris-based media freedom group Reporters Without Borders said it condemned "the thuggish attitude" of the police officers who used force against journalists.
"The Communist Party needs to understand that free expression is not a crime, even if the National People's Congress (NPC) is due to meet in a few days," the group said in a statement on its website.
"It needs to understand that criticism and debate are not synonymous with chaos and political instability. It also needs to respect everyone's right to information," the statement said.
In spite of the crackdown, online postings have called for further "Jasmine" protests in major cities across China to take place on March 6, a day after the NPC opens its annual parliamentary session in Beijing.
Reported by Grace Kei Lai-see for RFA's Cantonese service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.