China’s journalist association has issued a rare rebuke over police harassment, after videos emerged of state media journalists being pushed away from the site of a deadly explosion.

In a statement published on Wednesday evening, the All-China Journalists Association (AJCA), a Communist party-backed group, said that “legitimate interviews are a journalist’s right”, adding that the authorities “should not simply and brutally obstruct the media journalists from performing their duties in a normal manner in order to control public opinion”.

The unusually forthright comments came after videos emerged of two state media journalists being blocked from reporting from the scene of a explosion in the northern province of Hebei. The blast, which killed two people and injured 26, was triggered by a suspected gas leak in a restaurant.

In one video, uniformed men interrupt the broadcast of Yang Hailing, a CCTV reporter, as she speaks to news anchors in the studio of the state broadcaster from the site of the explosion. One of the anchors looks visibly shocked as the report is obstructed.

In another, a group of police officers surround Xu Mengzhe, a reporter who is clearly wearing a badge displaying the logo of China Media Group, the state-media parent company of CCTV and other broadcasters. In the video, Xu says: “We are three reporters surrounded by a dozen people, a dozen people pushed [us] apart, come and take a look”.

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“With such a major public safety incident, people are looking forward to learning more information. Journalists use a professional lens to record the actual disaster situation and the rescue process,” said the ACJA. The association said that the work of journalists was necessary to tackle online misinformation and “protect the people’s right to know”.

The videos sparked a debate on Chinese social media, with some users saying that the reporters were moved for their own safety.

China’s constitution guarantees press freedom. In reality, state media is tightly controlled and journalists for domestic and international outlets are routinely harassed, often physically, in the course of their reporting. Last year, three police officers were detained after a Chinese journalist was assaulted while trying to investigate the deaths of two teachers in Guizhou.

Reporters Without Borders ranks China as the second-worst country in the world for press freedom, with only North Korea scoring worse.

The ACJA’s statement contained “very unusual language” said David Bandurski, director of the China Media Project.

“They’re basically upholding the right to report” and “upholding an idea that information is valuable to the public”, two concepts which “sound very much like a view of journalism that has been actively opposed” in China, particularly under the rule of China’s president, Xi Jinping.

As of Thursday morning, the statement had been deleted from the association’s website but was still available on WeChat.

Many comments on Chinese social media expressed support for the statement, saying that the rights of journalists to report on news events should be protected.

Other commentaries asked why the ACJA had not defended other journalists, such as one who was beaten up in Guizhou. “Is this the first day you know this truth?” asked one liberal commentator on Weibo. “If you really care about journalists’ interview rights, you don’t have to wait until something happens to a CCTV reporter before you speak out.”

Additional research by Chi Hui Lin