Police Harassment of Chinese Reporter Sparks Anger and Apology

Firefighters douse a chemical tank after a blast at a plant producing paraxylene—a chemical commonly known as PX—in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, China on April 9, 2015. Almost 30,000 people living near a Chinese chemical plant where a huge fire blazed for a total of nearly 50 hours were evacuated before the flames were finally extinguished. STR/AFP/Getty Images

BEIJING—A Chinese environmental journalist’s account of police harassment while reporting on a chemical spill has sparked widespread condemnation online and an apology from the police.

Chinese financial publication Caixin on Nov. 18 published an article by reporter Zhou Chen describing how local authorities had trailed her for days as she reported on a leak of a petrochemical substance in the coastal city of Quanzhou in China’s southeastern Fujian Province.