China on Thursday as Australia pressed film festival to drop a documentary on ethnic Uighurs concerned as the two countries remains embroiled in a row over commercial espionage.
Chinese contact consular staff organizers of the International Film Festival in Melbourne last week, urging them to overturn a film about exile Uyghur businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer, due to Beijing this month for instigating ethnic unrest in Xinjiang.
Spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry Qin Gang said Thursday Kadeer should not be allowed to spread his “separatist” views.
“The whole world knows what kind of person Rebiya. We oppose any foreign country, providing a platform for anti-Chinese separatist activities,” he told a press conference.
“The 10 conditions of Love” tells of the relationship with activist husband Sidik Rouzi Kadeer and rain in 11 children in their drive for greater autonomy from China, 10 million mostly Muslim Uighurs. Three of his sons have been jailed.
China accuses Kadeer Uyghur World Congress of being a front for militant extremists to push an independent East Turkestan homeland. She was arrested in 1999 and convicted of “providing secret information to foreigners”.
Chinese Uighurs have been attacked in Urumqi on July 5 after police tried to break up a protest against the deadly attacks in Uighur workers at a factory in southern China. Chinese have launched revenge attacks in Urumqi later in the week.
The official death toll stands at 192, most of whom are Han Chinese, who constitute the majority of China 1.3 million. Almost all the others were Uighurs, a native of Xinjiang and culturally linked to Central Asia and Turkey.
The embassies of China and the consular staff keeps a low profile in Australia since the arrest last week by Chinese security officials, four staff Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto in relation to allegations of commercial espionage.
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Thanks for writing, I really enjoyed that post, wish you would post more often
Its one thing to want to make a political stand through film, but the Australian Film maker here is obviously misinformed. The fact that the Han-Chinese were killed in overwhelming numbers compared to the Uigur Muslims is proof that the Uigurs are not the victims in this debate.
In a scary way, these riots in China remind me more of the riots over the Danish cartoons. A couple of Uigurs are killed in a Chinese factory, the circumstances behind the deaths is unknown, but the Uigur Muslims, without knowing all the facts decide to riot, killing Han-Chinese, women and children indiscriminately.
If this is the way the Uigurs are going to behalf, do they really deserve to have their own country? Because if they do, a modern day “East Turkestan” would be similar to what Afghanistan is under the Taliban, a country that harbours religious fanatics.
At least the Chinese have the guts to put them in their place, to build up a well established civilization, give them MORE rights than the average Chinese-Han in order for a society to flourish.
Maybe the film should discuss this side of the story. The side of the story the world needs to here, which is the plight of the Han-Chinese who have lost family as a result of religious fundamentalists.