Dharamsala, July 23 – The Chinese consulate in Melbourne has attempted to remove a documentary film about exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer from the Melbourne International Film Festival, says the director of the festival Richard Moore.
“On Friday I received a call from Ms Chen who is based here in Melbourne at the Chinese Consulate. She said, ‘I am urging you to withdraw this film from the festival’,” said Moore, adding that the film will not be removed from the Melbourne festival starting July 24, 2009 and ending August 9, 2009.
If the Chinese Government wants to deflect attention from the plight of the Uighur people, it’s going about it the wrong way, says the film’s director Jeff Daniels.
The film is called The 10 Conditions of Love and Daniels has worked on it for about seven years. “It’s clear it’s a film the Chinese authorities don’t want to see,” reported the World Today, a popular radio program on ABC Australia on July 15, 2009.
Rebiya Kadeer has been nominated for a Nobel Prize for her efforts to highlight the plight of her people. The head of the World Uighur Congress has spent six years in a Chinese prison on charges of leaking state secrets and has lived in exile in the US since 2005.
The Chinese Government has blamed Uighur extremists for terrorist attacks in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics and accused Ms Kadeer of inciting the recent riots in Urumqi, the provincial capital.
The World Todayhas sought a response to the claim that China is using its diplomats to try to censor the Melbourne Film Festival, but calls to the consulate have not been returned.
“I’ve, over the past two and half years tried to contact the Chinese Consulate in Melbourne and Canberra, as well as in New York and Washington D.C., and talk about Xinjiang province, but the second I talk about Rebiya Kadeer the conversation is over,” said Daniels.
Daniels said that a story like Kadeer’s is really what they fear, providing any sort of platform for her to speak and express her views is something that the Chinese Government has been trying to stop.
Speaking to the World Today, Monash University China expert, Dr Dennis Woodward, said the Chinese authorities are worried the problems of the Uighur people will become a popular cause in the same way the Tibetan cause has been taken up globally.
“A lot of Chinese officials are not unprepared to use not just diplomatic pressure, but other pressure to achieve certain results. Typically they’ll show their displeasure if someone is seen to be doing something which is unfriendly towards China,” said Dennis.
