The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Hong Kong last night defended its decision to release a statement that suggested police were threatening reporters covering the protests. On Friday night, only hours after journalists were caught between police and protesters in violent clashes, the FCC released a statement condemning police for the arrest of an American photojournalist, Paula Bronstein, and alleged threats to other reporters. The club received about a dozen responses to the statement yesterday, several criticising it. One critic said: "It seems that you are condoning Ms Bronstein's illegal acts and are apparently advocating that journalists should be above the law. However, they are not." Club president Jitendra Joshi stood by the release. "We have every right to be concerned about signs that some police officers have been trying to intimidate journalists covering the protests, and to speak out about it." Joshi said Bronstein jumped onto the bonnet of a car because she felt "physically threatened". He added: "We thought she didn't deserve to be arrested for that, or to be detained all night." Bronstein was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage after the driver complained to the police. Yesterday, the 60-year-old freelance photographer for Getty told the Post that she had made a snap decision as she feared for her personal safety. "Somehow I ended up in the space where I was shooting the police and then they were coming towards me and getting pushed into the vehicle. It was borderline chaos. "It was a very fast-moving situation, pushing and shoving, very tense, very volatile and I was absolutely worried about my personal safety. It was a split second decision, I wasn't up there long. The driver got p***** off and the police arrested me." Bronstein took one photo when she was on the bonnet and that image explains the reasons for her actions, she said. "If you look at that, it's pretty obvious. You have one policeman with his arms outstretched trying to hold back what looks like 500 people." Asked if she felt it was acceptable to jump on the car, she said: "Experienced, mature journalists make decisions based on the threat level, on the situation at that moment." She added that her situation "should have been handled in a mature way, without an arrest, with a conversation". "I was wearing sneakers and I'm a very petite woman, I'm not an elephant," the Bangkok-based photographer said. She was released, after paying bail of HK$300, to report back to police later this month. Separately, Ronson Chan Ron-sing, an editor with Oriental Daily News' online television unit, said he may file a complaint against the police after he was pepper sprayed on Friday night following an argument over where he could film. He said: "They pushed my colleague with a baton and later pushed both me and my colleague onto the ground. I pointed at them and asked why they used force on my colleague, and then they started to pepper spray me."