China ‘expels’ French journalist for terrorism coverage
China didn't like Ursula Gauthier's reporting — so they are kicking her out of the country.The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Saturday confirmed that the French
journalist, Beijing correspondent for L’Obs, a French news magazine, will be expelled from the country over an essay she wrote questioning the Chinese government's rhetoric on terror.
In a written statement, a Lu Kang, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said Gauthier was no longer "suitable" for her job in China and would not be issued press credential for 2016. Lu charged that Gauthier's reporting "emboldened" terrorists.
Gauthier is the first foreign journalist to be expelled from China since 2012, when Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan was forced to leave after doing a series of stories on secret prisons. The New York Times and Bloomberg were alsodenied new journalist visas after publishing prize-winning stories about the wealth of China's top leaders and their families. (Both companies have since been issued new visas.)
The Foreign Correspondents Club of China, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the French Embassy in Beijing, have all expressed concern about the case.
Gauthier, a veteran journalist, has been in Beijing's crosshairs since November, when she wrote an essay about China's response to the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris.
The piece suggested Beijing's expression of solidarity post-Paris 'had "ulterior motives," namely a desire to get the international support for its claim that violence in China's Xinjing Uighur Autonomous Region is linked to a global war on terror.
Beijing maintains that violent unrest in Xinjiang is linked to international terror groups and often accuses foreign governments — and foreign reporters — of having a "double standard" on terrorism.
Many foreign scholars and rights groups say that what's happening in China's far northwest is less about global jihad than China's suppression of its Uighur population.
In the immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks, Chinese officials released details about a deadly attack at a coal mine in Xinjiang. China called it a coordinated terror attack; Gauthier's report suggested otherwise. What happened in Paris and what happened at the coal mine attacked had "nothing in common," she wrote.
The incident in Xinjiang was "an explosion of local rage," Gauthier said. "Pushed to the limit, a small group of Uighurs armed with cleavers set upon a coal mine and its Han Chinese workers, probably in revenge for an abuse, an injustice or an expropriation."
Soon after the piece was published, Gauthier was attacked in a series of stories in China's tightly controlled state-backed press. Commenters published her photograph and address online and threatened her with violence.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry later blasted Gauthier for "hurting Chinese people's feelings with wrong and hateful actions and words." They urged her to recant and apologize; Gauthier refused.
"They want a public apology for things that I have not written," she told the Associated Press. "They are accusing me of writing things that I have not written."
Gu Jinglu reported from Beijing.
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