Full Name Ursula Gauthier Occupation Journalist Books Behind the Gate | Nationality French Employer L'Obs | |
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Ursula Gauthier is a French journalist and sinologist. Gauthier was a reporter in China for L'Obs. In December 2015, her visa was not renewed and she was forced to leave the country after she published an article about Uighurs in Xinjiang which Chinese government officials disapproved of. A Chinese government Foreign Ministry spokesman suggested Gauthier's article "openly supports terrorist activity, the killing of innocents and has outraged the Chinese public."
Contents
Personal
Ursula Gauthier is a long time journalist that was working as a foreign correspondent for the French news organization L'Obs in China before she was expelled from the country in December 2015 for an article she wrote about the treatment of Uighurs in China. She was writing on Chinese police killing several Uighur people in Xinjiang which she claimed included women and children, all of whom they said were linked to an attack on a coal mine that happened in September. The controversy arose when Gauthier claimed that "abuse, injustice, expropriation" of Uighurs "probably" triggered retribution in the form of the mass slaughter at the coal mine. Gauthier claimed that many experts doubt that ETIM, the jihadist Uighur East Turkestan Islamic Movement accused by the Chinese government to be the organizer of all violent attacks in Xinjiang, poses any real threat inside China and that some experts deny ETIM's existence. She claimed that ETIM is not classified anymore as terrorist by the USA.
Career
Gauthier had spent six years reporting for L'Obs from Beijing before she was forced to leave.
Expulsion from China
Gauthier wrote an article about the Chinese leaders' reaction to the November 2015 Paris attacks that was released on November 18, 2015 titled "After the attacks, the solidarity of China is not without ulterior motives."
She was accused of supporting terrorism by Chinese officials and Chinese state-owned media, such as the Global Times, after her article was seen as being critical of the ruling class and their handling of Xinjiang Muslims. In particular, the Global Times took issue with Gauthier's statement in her article that "the Baicheng attack [in China] had nothing in common with the 13th November attacks [in Paris]" (l’attaque de Baicheng ne ressemble en rien aux attentats du 13 novembre), arguing that this statement suggested a view that the Chinese civilians perished in the Baicheng attack somehow deserve their fate.
Gauthier was also accused by Chinese netizens on ZhiHu, commonly known as the Chinese Quora, of being offensive. Specifically, these netizens believe that Gauthier's way of expressing her criticism of the Chinese government, one that centers on questioning the sincerity of Chinese leaders' sympathy with victims in Paris, is at the very least "rude and disrespectful."
After these accusations, the press credentials of Gauthier were effectively revoked, and as a result of this so was her visa, and she was given the choice to either leave China before January 1, 2016, or apologize to the people of China. She ended up leaving China before the start of the new year.
Impact
Gauthier is the first foreign journalist since Melissa Chan of Al Jazeera in 2012 to be expelled from China. According to Gauthier, her being expelled from China was a scare tactic by the Chinese government to dissuade foreign journalists from criticizing Chinese policies, especially those involving Xinjiang, from within China. China's decision to expel Ursula Gauthier comes as little surprise to some considering the country's ranking on the Press Freedom Index.
Reactions
News organizations from all over the world have reported Gauthier's expulsion from China from the New York Times to Al Jazeera in Qatar. French journalists and press executives published a collective open letter condemning her expulsion. Most reactions from journalists and news organizations alike were not in favor of the Chinese government's decision to expel Ursula Gauthier. Although the Global Times, a newspaper affiliated with the Chinese government, applauded the decision, and published an article citing a survey they conducted that showed 95% of the people surveyed in China supported the government's decision. The Committee to Protect Journalists released the results from the Foreign Correspondents Club of China's annual survey results. The survey assessed the amount of trouble (such as how easy it is to gain access to certain areas, or how quickly a journalist receives her or his Chinese visa) that foreign journalist face while trying to report on stories going on in China. The survey concluded that the treatment of Ursula Gauthier by the Chinese government, and the Chinese press, which resulted in death threats and personal attacks, were comparable to abuse.