China ‘expels’ French journalist for supporting Uighur community

MUST WATCH Embassies warn of threats against Westerners in Beijing 01:55 In a press release published by the Chinese language Foreign Ministry Sat., spokesperson Lu Kang stated Gauthier’s article “overtly advocates for acts of terrorism and killings of innocent civilians, and caused public outrage among the Chinese people”.

Gauthier had been under pressure from the Chinese authorities to withdraw the article since its publication last month, L’Obs said. “They are accusing me of writing things that I have not written”.

She characterized the allegations against her as slander.

Gauthier would be the first foreign correspondent to be expelled since the 2012 expulsion of Melissa Chan, correspondent for the English-language service of Al Jazeera. She wrote that a recent violent attack on a coal mine in the area was “probably in revenge for an abuse, an injustice or an expropriation”. Human rights groups routinely accuse Beijing of heavy-handed tactics and repression of religion and speech for the minority group.

In the article, she blamed the government policy in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region for terrorist attacks.

The region’s heavy security presence often precludes journalists from accessing the scenes of these attacks, making independent reporting almost impossible. The president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Peter Ford, has complained that there is “a general sense of official mistrust of outsiders”.

Ursula Gauthier, a long-time journalist for the French news magazine L’Obs, said late Friday that China’s foreign ministry demanded she issue a public apology and distance herself from any group that should present her case as infringement of press freedom in China. Ignorant of what is really taking place in China, she writes articles out of stubborn Western stereotypes.

In its World Press Freedom Index listing 180 countries, Reporters Without Borders ranks China at number 176, just ahead of Syria, North Korea, Turkmenistan and Eritrea. Gauthier was also subjected to a series of vicious online attacks, including death threats.

On November 18th, after the attacks in Paris, Gauthier wrote that Beijing’s expressions of solidarity with the French were at least partly disingenuous. I did the maximum I could do.

“I said I never supported terrorism – how do you want me to apologise for something I have not written?…”

“Relevant regulations in the anti-terrorism law will not affect the normal business operation of companies, and we do not use the law to set up “back doors” to violate the intellectual property rights of companies”, said Li Shouwei of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee’s legislative affairs commission. How is it possible?

In this regard, on Friday, the French foreign ministry issued a terse statement in which it regretted that Gauthier’s visa was not renewed.