German TV station apologizes for picture 'in wrong context'

BERLIN: Germany's RTL television said on Sunday that it "regrets an error" in covering the riots in Lhasa when it "used a picture in a wrong context".

The picture was taken on March 17 in Kathmandu, where baton-wielding Nepalese security forces confronted Tibetan protesters. But the TV station said it was a scene in Tibet involving Chinese security forces. "We regret this error," RTL said in a statement on its website.

RTL Aktuell, a key news program on RTL TV, along with the German Bild newspaper and the Washington Post, have been criticized by Chinese netizens in the past few days for using that picture in what they describe as distorted coverage of the Lhasa riots.