China expels French reporter who questioned terrorism

Citing a foreign ministry spokesperson, the state-controlled Xinhua news agency reported that press credentials for Ursula Gauthier, a reporter for the French magazine L’Obs, will not be renewed.

French journalist Ursula Gauthier, a reporter for the French news magazine L’Obs, holds a statement criticizing her from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs as she sits at her desk in her apartment in Beijing, Saturday, Dec. 26, 2015.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said that the country “does not tolerate the freedom to embolden terrorism”. The New York Times and Bloomberg were also denied new journalist visas after publishing prize-winning stories about the wealth of China’s top leaders and their families.

If her press card is not renewed, Ms Gauthier can not apply for a new visa, and will have to leave China by 31 December.

This is the first expulsion of a foreign correspondent in China since 2012, when the China correspondent of Al Jazeera was forced out of the country.

Ms Gauthier published her article after the attacks in Paris in November, suggesting China’s solidarity with France might have an ulterior motive, to justify its own crackdowns in Xinjiang.

China attributes the long-running unrest in western sovereign Xinjiang area on Islamist separatists, a lot of whom it says have ties that are foreign.

In the immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks, Chinese officials released details about a deadly attack at a coal mine in Xinjiang. Gauthier’s reports do not seem to have come from a person who has been living in China for years.

The incident in Xinjiang was “an explosion of local rage”, Gauthier said. “[But] they are not indicting me, they are expelling me and they expect people to believe that this is the real issue”. Commenters published her photograph and address online and threatened her with violence. “They want a public apology for things in that I have not written”, Gauthier stated.

On Friday, Gauthier said that the Foreign Ministry demanded her to apologize for “hurting Chinese people’s feelings with wrong and hateful actions and words”, and to publicly state that she recognizes that there have been terrorist attacks in and outside Xinjiang.