The Chinese government has refused to renew the visa of a French journalist unless she publicly apologises for an article about its policies in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.
In an article for French magazine L’Obs, Ursula Gauthier suggested that the Chinese authorities’ antiterrorism campaign in Xinjiang was a cloak for repressive policies that had inspired widespread resentment among Uighurs.
Chinese authorities have compared violent attacks by members of the region’s Muslim Uighur community to those perpetrated by Isis and its sympathisers around the world. In the wake of last month’s Paris attacks, Beijing released details about a September assault on a Xinjiang coal mine that state media had previously not reported on.