Censor Yourself, or Keep Out

Chinese authorities refused to allow a Chuo University lecturer who has been studying Uygur issues to enter the country after her plane landed in Beijing on Saturday, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

Adam Cathcart makes some educated guesses as to why Naoko Mizutani, the scholar in question, my have been denied entry on arrival at the airport last weekend. According to China Daily, Mizutani had registered as a guarantor for Rebiya Kadeer’s entry visa when the latter visited Japan in July last year. Rebiya Kadeer is chairwoman of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC).

Beijing is using various procedures to keep Uyghur dissent out of the international public. Having World Uyghur Congress members barred from entering third countries (especially ones neighboring China, such as Taiwan or South Korea, for being “internationally wanted”) has been a course of action for some time. Putting pressure on cultural events such as the Kaohsiung and Melbourne Film Festivals (both screening a movie unwanted by Beijing) is another one.

The denial of entry for a scholar doing resarch on Xinjiang appears to become another tool of Beijing’s global censorship policies.  It suggests that pressure is being built on foreign researchers to either wear political glasses prescribed by the CCP in- and outside China, or to limit themselves to second-hand research from outside China.

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Related
Information Imperialism, Global Times, January 22, 2010
Have Chinese Scholars all been bought? – FEER, April 2007

Spring is Coming

Practically all the snow and ice is gone, and the temperatures have become mild – usually around seven degrees C. at daytime.

spring in the flatlands

The first spring storm came in too, on Sunday afternoon. It caused a lot of damage in France, but calmed down significantly before arriving here, travelling from south-west to the direction of the Baltic Sea.