China tries to bar Uighur film in Australia

By Rob Taylor

CANBERRA (Reuters) - China's government, entangled in a row with Australia over alleged commercial spying, has stirred more controversy by demanding a documentary about restive ethnic Uighurs be dropped from Australia's largest film festival.

Chinese consular staff contacted organisers of the Melbourne International Film Festival urging them to dump a film about exiled Uighur businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer, blamed by Beijing for instigating this month's ethnic riots in Xinjiang.

China's consulate in Melbourne phoned last week to insist the documentary "The 10 Conditions of Love" be withdrawn ahead of its August 8 premiere and demanding justification for its inclusion, festival director Richard Moore said on Wednesday.

"No-one reacts well to strident approaches, or to the appearance of being bullied. I don't think it's a positive way of behaving," Moore told Reuters.

The call, he said, came from the new Melbourne cultural attache Chunmei Chen. Calls to the consulate by Reuters on Wednesday went unanswered.

"She urged me to withdraw the film from the festival and then told me in no uncertain terms that I should justify my decision to include the film in the festival programme," Moore said.

The incident is attracting widespread media attention in Australia.

The film tells of Kadeer's relationship with activist husband Sidik Rouzi and the fallout on her 11 children of her push for more autonomy for China's 10 million mainly-Muslim Uighurs. Three of her children have been jailed.