News reports based on secret video grabs of a woman forced to do 'nude squats' in police custody, which put the government in a spot over human rights, has backfired on press freedom as it turned out that the victim's nationality had been wrongly identified.

The widely circulated Chinese-language daily newspaper China Press , which broke the story, has been obliged to publish its "deepest apology" on the front page for having wrongly identified the victim asa Chinese national when she turned out to be a local and ethnic Malay.