According to worldwide media, the Chinese Foreign Ministry stated that it would not renew the press credentials of Ursula Gauthier, a Beijing correspondent for the French weekly L’Obs. She wrote that Beijing’s proclaimed solidarity with Paris is not without ulterior motives, as Beijing seeks worldwide support for its assertion that the ethnic violence in its Muslim region, Xinjiang, is part of global terrorism.
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China says it will impose new restrictions on media reports about terrorism, as it continued to deride a French journalist being expelled after questioning the government’s terrorism claims.
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Gauthier will be the first foreign journalist to be expelled after al-Jazeera correspondent Melissa Chan in 2012.
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Earlier this month, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying expressed frustration over Gauthier’s reporting on China’s counter-terrorism policy.
Speaking to RFI’s former Beijing correspondent, Stéphane Lagarde, Gauthier said that if she goes back to France, she will no longer suffer from any repression or threats, “but this is above all a bad sign for foreign journalists here”. Foreign experts, however, have argued that there is no proof of foreign ties and that the violence in Xinjiang might be homegrown.
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.
An Weixing, the head of the Public Security Ministry’s counter-terrorism division, speaks at a news conference after China’s parliament passed a controversial new anti-terrorism law in Beijing, on Sunday.
Ms Gauthier called the accusations “absurd”, and said that emboldening terrorism is morally and legally wrong.
China’s official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary Monday that her piece was “as immoral as it is sensational”. Before the Paris attacks, only foreign news organizations had written about the mine attack.
Chinese media on Monday celebrated the imminent expulsion of the reporter accused of supporting terrorism, with a poll purporting to demonstrate overwhelming support for the decision.
But exile groups and human rights activists say repressive religious policies and economic marginalization are provoking the unrest. In a counterterrorism campaign, a Xinjiang court past year sentenced an Uighur scholar critical of China’s ethnic policies in Xinjiang to life in prison.
“It’s clear that the West has adopted a double standard on terrorism …”
“Not only in China, but also in many places internationally, growing numbers of terrorists are using the Internet to promote and incite terrorism, and are using the Internet to organize, plan and carry out terrorist acts”, another official, Li Shouwei, said Sunday.
Leibold said China was using terrorism legislation to target some of the country’s ethnic minorities.
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By then, state media had launched an abusive and intimidating campaign against Ms Gauthier, accusing her of having deep prejudice against China and having hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.
