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Chinese hack site over Uighur film
July 26th, 2009 |
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Beijing unhappy at decision to screen film about exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, accused of plotting Urumqi riots
Chinese hackers have attacked the website of Australia’s biggest film festival over its decision to screen a documentary about the exiled Uighur leader, Rebiya Kadeer.
Yesterday], two days after the Melbourne international festival opened, hackers replaced programme information with the Chinese flag and anti-Kadeer slogans and sent spam emails in an attempt to crash the site, according to reports in the Australian press.
“We like film but we hate Rebiya Kadeer,” one message said, demanding an apology to the Chinese people.
The festival director, Richard Moore, said staff had been bombarded with abusive emails after he rebuffed demands from the Chinese government to drop the film about Kadeer, The 10 Conditions of Love, and cancel her invitation to the festival.
“The language has been vile,” Moore told the Melbourne Age. “It is obviously a concerted campaign to get us because we’ve refused to comply with the Chinese government’s demands.”
He said the festival had reported the attacks, which appear to be coming from a Chinese internet protocol address, and was discussing security concerns with Victoria’s state police. Private security guards are being hired to protect Kadeer and other patrons at the film’s screening on August 8.
Kadeer denies Beijing’s claim that she masterminded this month’s riots in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, in which almost 200 people died.The 10 Conditions of Love, directed by the Australian filmmaker Jeff Daniels, describes Kadeer’s relationship with her activist husband Sidik Rouzi and reveals the impact of her campaign for more autonomy for China’s 10 million mainly Muslim Uighurs on her 11 children, three of whom have received jail sentences.
Once one of the richest women in Xinjiang and held up as an exemplar of China’s purported multi-ethnic harmony, Rebiya Kadeer now heads two prominent Uighur exile groups, speaking out against Beijing’s oppression of the Turkic-speaking minority.
Kadeer’s persecution by the Chinese and her stature as a public face of the Uighur people have earned her comparisons to the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. Like him, she has been an unrelenting target for Chinese opprobrium.
Her appearance at the Melbourne film festival means the event has also come into Chinese sights. Last week, three Chinese directors withdrew films, with two denying they were forced to do so by Chinese authorities. Director Tang Xiaobai, who withdrew her film Perfect Life after being phoned by the Chinese foreign ministry and the state administration of radio, film and television, said it was her decision to boycott the festival.
“I do not want to see my film screened on the same platform as a film about Kadeer,” Tang told the official English-language newspaper China Daily.
The row over the Kadeer documentrary is not the only row to hit the festival. The British film director, Ken Loach, last week withdrew his film, Looking for Eric, in protest at its decision to accept sponsorship from Israel.
The slogan of the Melbourne film festival is “Everyone’s a critic”.
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Chinese hack film festival site
July 26th, 2009 |
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Chinese hackers have attacked the website of Australia’s biggest film festival over a documentary about Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer.
Content on the Melbourne International Film Festival site was briefly replaced with the Chinese flag and anti-Kadeer slogans on Saturday, reports said.
In an earlier protest on Friday, Beijing withdrew four Chinese films.
Melbourne’s The Age newspaper says private security guards have been hired to protect Kadeer and other film-goers.
She is due to attend the screening of Ten Conditions of Love, by Australian documentary-maker Jeff Daniels, on 8 August.
‘Vile language’
Chinese authorities blame Kadeer – leader of the World Uighur Congress – for inciting ethnic unrest in Xinjiang, charges she denies.
Earlier this month, around 200 people died and 1,600 were injured during fighting in the region between the mostly Muslim Uighurs and settlers from China’s Han majority.
Kadeer, 62, spent six years in a Chinese prison before she was released into exile in the US in 2005. In 2004, she won the Rafto Prize for human rights.
Richard Moore, head of the Melbourne International Film Festival, told the Age his staff had been bombarded with abusive emails after the festival refused the Chinese government’s demands to withdraw the film about Kadeer and cancel her invitation to the festival.
"The language has been vile," Mr Moore said. "It is obviously a concerted campaign to get us."
He said police were investigating the website attacks, which appear to come from a Chinese internet address.</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Chinese directors shun festival
July 22nd, 2009 |
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Two Chinese directors have boycotted Australia’s biggest film festival over the screening of a documentary about political activist Rebiya Kadeer.
Richard Moore, head of the Melbourne International Film Festival, said their films were pulled after he ignored political pressure from Beijing.
He told the AFP news agency "It’s hard to draw any other conclusion."
Chinese authorities blame Kadeer – leader of the World Uighur Congress – for inciting ethnic unrest in Xinjiang.
Earlier this month, at least 197 people died and more than 1,600 were injured during fighting in the region between the mostly Muslim Uighurs and a growing number of settlers from China’s Han majority.
Kadeer, 62, spent six years in a Chinese prison before she was released into exile in the US in 2005.
In 2004, she won the Rafto Prize for human rights.
She is expected to attend the screening of Ten Conditions of Love, by Australian documentary-maker Jeff Daniels.
‘Annoyed and irritated’
In a statement, Mr Moore said Jia Zhangke, director of the short film Cry Me A River, and Emily Tang, the director of Perfect Life, "have decided to withdraw their films from this year’s festival".
He added that Ms Tang had cancelled her trip to Melbourne as a guest of the festival.
Mr Moore said the screening of Ten Conditions of Love, which has sold out at the event, was the subject of a phone call from a Chinese consular official last week.
But he said the festival would stand firm by its decision to include the documentary in the programme.
He told AFP: "It makes me feel angry, annoyed and irritated all at the same time, that they would try to interfere with our programme for blatantly political ends."
China has not commented on the films being withdrawn.
A third Chinese film-maker, Zhao Liang, has also asked the festival to drop his film Petition, a controversial documentary examining injustices in China’s court system. </p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
China tries to block Uighur film
July 15th, 2009 |
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Organisers of Melbourne’s International Film Festival have defied calls from China not to show a documentary about an exiled Uighur leader.
Festival director Richard Moore said a Chinese consular official had insisted that the film be withdrawn, but he had refused to do so.
The film, Ten Conditions of Love, centres on Rebiya Kadeer, the US-based head of the World Uighur Congress.
China accuses the group of inciting recent ethnic unrest in Xinjiang.
Beijing and Canberra are already locked in a row over an Australian mining executive who has been arrested for spying in China.
‘Strident’
Mr Moore said that after the event’s programme was published, he was contacted by Melbourne-based Chinese cultural attache Chunmei Chen who urged him to withdraw the film.
"I said I had no reason to withdraw the film from the festival and she then proceeded to tell me that I had to justify my decision to include the film in the festival.
"No-one reacts well to strident approaches, or to the appearance of being bullied. I don’t think it’s a positive way of behaving," he added.
He said he told Ms Chen he did not have to justify the film’s inclusion, "then politely hung up".
The Chinese consulate in Melbourne has not commented on the incident.
China has accused Ms Kadeer of orchestrating recent bloodshed in Xinjiang, home to the ethnic Muslim Uighurs and a growing number of China’s Han majority.
Violence between the two groups this month has left more than 180 people dead and more than 1,600 injured, Chinese authorities say.
Ms Kadeer, one of China’s richest women, was jailed in China for endangering national security but released in 2005 on medical grounds. She now lives in the US.
Ten Conditions of Love, by Melbourne film-maker Jeff Daniels, tells of Ms Kadeer’s relationship with her activist husband Sidik Rouzi and the impact her campaigning had on her 11 children.
Three of her children have been jailed.
‘Spying’ arrest
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd warned China on Wednesday that governments and corporations around the world were watching how it handled the case of an Australian mining executive.
Stern Hu, the Australian head of Rio Tinto’s iron ore business in China, was detained on suspicion of industrial espionage relating to negotiations with Chinese steel mills over iron ore prices.</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.