China Expels French Journalist Over Article Critical of Gov’t on Ethnic Violence

China has refused to renew the credentials of a French journalist over her comments on terrorism, a foreign ministry official said on Saturday.

“They confirmed that if I did not make a public apology on all the points that had “hurt the Chinese people”…my press card would not be renewed and I would have to leave on December 31”, she told AFP.

“I wrote them a very long letter explaining that I never said those offending things that Global Times said that I said”.

The Global Times, which is part of the People’s Daily, the official organ of the ruling Communist Party, ran the results of a poll of over 200,000 people which showed that some 95 per cent of respondents said “yes” when asked “Do you support expelling the French journalist who supports terrorism?”

The fallout began with Gauthier’s November 18 article, shortly after the attacks in Paris.

“China’s retaliation against Ms. Gauthier for doing her job is a deeply unfortunate development and another sign that China is unwilling to brook criticism of its actions”, Griffen said. “Don t presume to represent me – I don t even know what happened!” wrote one user on China s Twitter-like Weibo platform.

In her article, Gauthier suggested Beijing’s “pitiless repression” of the Uighurs was helping to fuel what appeared to be a growing tide of deadly violence.

China’s official Xinhua news agency said on Monday that her article was “as immoral as it is sensationalist”.

A Foreign Ministry spokesperson explained that all they wanted was an apology to the people of China for what she wrote, saying while China “has consistently safeguarded the legal right of foreign news organizations and foreign correspondents to report in the country”, they don’t tolerate “the freedom to embolden terrorism”.

China passed a controversial new anti-terrorism law on Sunday that requires technology firms to help decrypt information, but not install security “backdoors” as initially planned, and allows the military to venture overseas on counter-terror operations.

Gauthier has a number of supporters after her expulsion was announced, including Melissa Chan, who was kicked out of China in 2012 while she was working as a foreign correspondent for Al Jazeera. When contacted by CNN, Gauthier stated in that she would abandon China on Thurs. According to the Washington Post these groups and scholars believe that “what’s happening in China’s far northwest is less about global jihad than China’s suppression of its Uighur population”.

“By falsely describing certain ethnic groups in Xinjiang as the oppressed, the article may also incite hatred and confrontation between different ethnic groups in China”.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticized Western media for using double standards in reporting on the violence, and said that terrorism should not be considered ethnic violence in Xinjiang.

The Foreign Correspondents Club of China has said it is “deeply concerned with the attempts of intimidation” in Gauthier’s case.

Earlier this month, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying expressed frustration over Gauthier’s reporting on China’s counter-terrorism policy.

She said she could not comply and would not distance herself from support groups.