A French journalist said she is prepared to leave China and does not expect authorities to renew her media credentials because of her reporting of Beijing’s efforts to equate ethnic violence in the western Muslim region with international terrorism.
Ursula Gauthier, a long-time journalist for the French news magazine L’Obs, late on Friday said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded she issue a public apology and distance herself from any group that should present her case as infringement of media freedom in China.
Left with no room for negotiations, she said she plans to leave on Dec. 31, when her visa expires.
“They want a public apology for things that I have not written,” Gauthier said. “They are accusing me of writing things that I have not written.”
The fallout began with Gauthier’s Nov. 18 article, shortly after the attacks in Paris. She wrote that Beijing’s proclaimed solidarity with Paris is not without ulterior motives, as Beijing seeks international support for its assertion that the ethnic violence in the Muslim region of Xinjiang is part of international terrorism.
Gauthier wrote that some of the violent attacks in Xinjiang appeared to be homegrown with no evidence of foreign ties — an observation that has been made by numerous foreign experts on security and Xinjiang’s ethnic policies and practices.
Advocacy groups have argued that the violence is more likely to be a response to Beijing’s suppressive policies in Xinjiang.
In her article, Gauthier focused on a deadly mine attack in a remote region of Xinjiang, which she described as more likely an act by Uighurs against mine workers of the majority Han ethnic group over what the Uighurs perceived as mistreatment, injustice and exploitation.
The article quickly drew stern criticism from state media and the Chinese government.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticized Western media for using double standards in reporting on the violence and said that terrorism should not be considered ethnic violence in Xinjiang.
“Why is terrorism in other countries called terrorist actions, but it turns out to be ethnic and religious issues in China?” ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) said at a news briefing on Dec. 2.
By then, state media had carried abusive editorials against Gauthier, accusing her of having deep prejudice against China.
On Friday, Gauthier said that the ministry demanded her apology for “hurting Chinese people’s feelings with wrong and hateful actions and words,” and to publicly state that she recognizes that there have been terrorist attacks in and outside Xinjiang.
“What they are doing is just to show all the foreign correspondents here what you get if you write whatever is not palatable to Chinese authorities. That’s the message,” Gauthier said.
If Gauthier does not get her media credentials renewed by the end of year, she will become the first foreign journalist to be forced to leave China since US journalist Melissa Chan, then working for al-Jazeera in Beijing, was expelled in 2012.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS