Cultural heritage authority says officers' attack on archaeologists violated principles

The National Cultural Heritage Administration, in a statement on Tuesday, sharply criticized a violent attack made last week on two archaeologists by urban patrol officers in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province.

"We neither saw them following basic regulations nor any convincing reason for them not to do so," the statement said of the officers.

Preservation of underground cultural relics is a duty of local governments under China's Cultural Relic Protection Law, the administration said, but the enforcement action in this case was unreasonable.