Pyongyang, North Korea (CNN)A BBC correspondent and his team have been expelled from North Korea after authorities detained him for filing what they called "disrespectful" reports from inside the country.
BBC reporter Rupert Wingfield-Hayes arrived Monday evening in Beijing on a flight from Pyongyang, according to a tweet from the BBC's Asia bureau chief, Jo Floto.
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His BBC colleagues, producer Maria Byrne and cameraman Matthew Goddard, also were on the plane, the British broadcaster said.
North Korean officials detained Wingfield-Hayes, the BBC's Tokyo correspondent, at the Pyongyang airport, questioned him for eight hours and then made him sign a statement apologizing, according to the broadcaster.
North Korean authorities said they took issue with "disrespectful" reports he filed from inside the country last week.
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Reporter 'speaking very ill' of system
Speaking on the matter at a press conference, O Ryong Il, secretary general of the North Korea's National Peace Committee, said the BBC team had violated local customs and acted in an aggressive manner during the trip.
"During their coverage they were not very just in terms of respecting the local custom, the system in the DPRK and even made distorted facts," he said, using an acronym for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as the country is formally known.
"They were speaking very ill of the system of the leadership of the country when they should have been reporting very fairly, objectively and very correctly."
He said Wingfield-Hayes would never be allowed back into North Korea to report.
"We think that if the BBC is a genuine, true, international media organization you should be acting in such a way as to respect the law and system in the country, and you must admit your mistakes."
Another BBC correspondent at the press conference used the word "interrogated" in relation to Wingfield-Hayes' treatment and asked how the world would view the fact that North Korea had detained and punished a journalist for reporting things with which it didn't agree.
The question remained unanswered, and the official walked out of the room.
A BBC spokesman told CNN that the organization was "very disappointed" at the deportations.
"Four BBC staff, who were invited to cover the Workers' Party Congress, remain in North Korea and we expect them to be allowed to continue their reporting."
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