Taiwan should have nothing to fear from screening a controversial documentary on exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer, the film's producer said yesterday in Taipei, adding that it would demonstrate that Taiwan’s respect for freedom of speech and human rights was “not negotiable.”
John Lewis, producer of The 10 Conditions of Love — a 53-minute documentary on Kadeer and her fight for improved human rights in East Turkistan, or Xinjiang — said the film did not criticize the Chinese people, but rather focused on the course of action taken by Beijing to restrict freedom of speech in other countries.
The Chinese government condemned the film and its subject, branding Kadeer a “terrorist” and a “separatist.”
MELBOURNE
When the film was shown at the Melbourne International Film Festival in July, it was met with scorn from the Chinese embassy, which tried hard to have the film removed.
The festival Web site was hacked by protesters who demanded that organizers apologize to all Chinese people.
Despite the confrontation, the film was shown to an audience of more than 1,000 people, said Lewis, and Kadeer was issued a visa to Australia to give a speech.
TAIWAN
The Taiwanese government, however, has rejected any visit by Kadeer.
“I believe there is a more subtle and far more powerful course of action now being taken by China to limit free speech in other countries — at least in subjects in which China is interested — by which it uses its economic power to ‘encourage’ other countries to censor themselves,” Lewis said.
The producer added that several major film festivals, including in South Korea, Canada and England, have refused to show the film, possibly because of Chinese influence.
NEW TACTIC
However, Lewis said Beijing seemed to have taken a different approach to the issue in the last six to eight weeks.
Instead of fighting the film in public, Beijing has stayed quiet about it, he said.
Chinese officials have finally figured out that making a big fuss about the documentary only makes people more interested in it, Lewis said.
SILENCE
Chinese officials’ silence on the film, he said, did not mean that Beijing had eased its oppression in Xinjiang, where Human Rights Watch said more than 40 Uighurs were recently executed.
Lewis has offered Taiwan’s Public Television System (PTS) a broadcast deal to show the film but has not received any response.
Lewis said PTS was interested in a German film on Rebiya titled China’s Public Enemy Number One, but later dropped the idea when it found out the film was Lewis’ film under a different name.
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