{"id":4149,"date":"2018-10-08T10:09:17","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T10:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2018\/10\/08\/buzzfeed-journalist-denied-new-china-visa-following-award-winning-coverage-xinjiang\/"},"modified":"2018-10-08T10:09:17","modified_gmt":"2018-10-08T10:09:17","slug":"buzzfeed-journalist-denied-new-china-visa-following-award-winning-coverage-xinjiang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/buzzfeed-journalist-denied-new-china-visa-following-award-winning-coverage-xinjiang\/","title":{"rendered":"Buzzfeed journalist denied new China visa following award-winning coverage of Xinjiang crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Buzzfeed\u2019s China bureau chief Megha Rajagopalan has been forced to leave China after her journalism visa application was denied by the authorities without explanation.<\/p>\n

Rajagopalan had been covering Asia since 2012 and has reported extensively on the crackdown in Xinjiang, a western region of China populated by Muslim Uyghurs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is bittersweet to leave Beijing after spending six wonderful and eye-opening years as a journalist there\u2026 Can\u2019t express how grateful I am to have lived in China through a period of incredible economic dynamism & social change. Living there forced me to learn not only a new language & culture, but an entirely new way of seeing the world. It\u2019s been endlessly challenging and rewarding,\u201d she tweeted.<\/p>\n

Her article<\/a> \u201cThis is what a 21st-century police state really looks like\u201d gave focus to surveillance technology deployed in the region, winning recognition at the 2018 Human Rights Press Awards.<\/a>The acclaimed feature reported that facial recognition cameras and fingerprint scanning technologies were being used to monitor civilians in a growing police state.<\/p>\n

C\u00e9dric Alviani, director of journalism watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) East Asia, told HKFP that China\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs should reverse its decision: \u201cHarassing foreign journalists and then posing as a victim when they publish annoying reports will not help the Chinese government to improve its image\u2026 Such behaviour is all the more shocking because the regime does its best to exploit the freedom available to journalists in democratic countries in order to develop its propaganda network there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Citing a Foreign Correspondents\u2019 Club of China (FCCC) survey last year, Alviani added: \u201cUsing the threat of non-renewal of their press visas, the classic method of pressuring foreign reporters, is on the rise. Fifteen percent of the respondents said they had been threatened, three times as many as last year. Six percent said they had been directly threatened with expulsion, a percentage that has also tripled.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Extremely regrettable\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rajagopalan confirmed the news with HKFP after the FCCC tweeted about her visa refusal on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the club\u2019s Press Freedom Committee said Rajagopalan had conducted herself to the highest journalistic standards whilst in the country. It condemned the authorities for failing to give a clear reason for the visa denial: \u201cWe find this extremely regrettable and unacceptable for a government that repeatedly insists it welcomes foreign media to cover the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Rajagopalan said on Twitter that she will now report on human rights and technology from the Middle East, but will continue to cover Xinjiang.<\/p>\n

The Chinese authorities have conducted large-scale arrests of ethnic minorities in the region since 2014, when President Xi Jinping enacted \u201cstrike hard\u201d government campaigns to tackle unrest. NGO Chinese Human Rights Defenders found in a report released last month that one in five arrests in China last year took place in the Xinjiang region<\/a>, despite the region containing only 1.5 per cent of the country\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

\u2018Formidable\u2019 journalist<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beijing has previously expelled or denied visas to foreign journalists after they produced work critical of the government. Al-Jazeera\u2019s Melissa Chan was forced to leave the country in 2012, after her press credentials were not renewed by authorities.<\/p>\n

L\u2019Obs reporter Ursula Gauthier was expelled in 2015 after writing an article about Chinese leaders\u2019 response to the Paris attacks that year.<\/p>\n

Swedish journalist Jojje Olsson was also barred from entering China last year using visa restrictions<\/a>. He previously told HKFP that the decision was made after he criticised China for its reporting restrictions in an article published<\/a> by the Swedish newspaper Expressen last June.<\/p>\n

Fellow journalists and human rights figures voiced their support for Rajagopalan and paid tribute to her work on Twitter after the news emerged.<\/p>\n

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Megha Rajagopalan<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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 \u00b7 Aug 22, 2018<\/a><\/div>\n
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Some news from me\u2014 I’m really excited to be moving to a new role @<\/span>BuzzFeedNews<\/span><\/a> focusing on technology and human rights. I’ll be reporting from the Middle East and beyond. I’m looking forward to continuing to report on tech companies, authoritarianism, surveillance & other issues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Didi Kirsten Tatlow<\/span><\/span>@dktatlow<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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