(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-03-25 23:56

BERLIN  -- Scorching comments from netizens have flooded the website of a German television channel, which admitted it used a picture of baton-wielding Nepalese police clashing with Tibetan protesters in Kathmandu to report riots in Tibet.

"It is one of the biggest disgraces in the German media," said one netizen registered as Franz, which is among over 130 comments listed under an admission-of-error statement released by the German broadcaster RTL television.

"The intention is to produce media effect without scrupulous and professional investigation of the facts. Some German media have given me the impression that they have prejudices anyway and have been propagandizing for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics and a separation of Tibet from China. What an 'independent free press'!" said Franz.

Another comment contributed by a netizen named Lagatou said many Germans have no idea about China, have never been there and cannot understand the Chinese language. They have a wrong perception of China based on distorted and selective media coverage.

Meanwhile, "Christian" noted in his comment that the German media have been criticizing China in the past few years. "The reason that the German media always criticise China is that China is rising in these years, but Germany not, the West not."

Another netizen said one has to imagine that there are 56 different nationalities in China. "If each of them wanted to have their own country, what would happen then? Do we still have peace? "

RTL TV and Germany's news television channel N-TV, as well as the Bild newspaper and the Washington Post have been found to have used images of baton-wielding Nepalese police clashing with protesters in Kathmandu, claiming the officers were Chinese police.

They are among a number of Western media that have been condemned by netizens in the past few days for distorting facts while covering the riots in Lhasa, capital of China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

Both RTL and N-TV have apologized for placing the images in a wrong context.