Global Times - Taiwan festival to show Kadeer’s docu

Taiwan festival to show Kadeer’s docu

Source: Global Times
[08:02 September 07 2009]
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A documentary about Rebiya Kadeer, a separatist leader blamed for masterminding the July 5 Xinjiang riots, will be screened during a film festival in Taiwan next month, Wang Yu-chi, a spokesman for Taiwan leader's office, said Sunday.

The Kaohsiung Film Festival will feature some 70 local and international films from October 16 to 29.

The category called People Power will screen 13 movies including The Ten Conditions of Love, said Liu Hsiu-ying, director of the Kaohsiung Film Archive.

"The Ten Conditions of Love got public attention because of the Melbourne International Film Festival in August," said Liu.

"Our goal is to promote arts and culture; we hope people will not see it from a political angle."

China protested Kadeer's visit to Australia for the screening of her biopic at the Melbourne festival.

Chinese directors dropped out of the festival and Chinese bloggers and citizens around the world conducted a campaign that consequently crashed the festival's website.

Rebiya is accused of inciting the July 5 riots in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which left 197 people dead and more than 1,600 injured.

The inclusion of the documentary at Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second largest city, is particularly sensitive for the Chinese mainland as its mayor, Chen Chu, is a member of the island's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party.

That opposition party had also invited the Dalai Lama to Taiwan earlier last week to comfort victims of Typhoon Morakot.

Observers said screening the Kadeer film is likely to further irritate Beijing, which was already seething over the Dalai Lama's visit, AFP said.

"It's not surprising to know the news. The separatists of Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang join hands to pursue a common goal, confronting with the mainland and ruining the cross-Straits relations," said Wang Jianmin, Taiwan affairs researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.