BBC reporter John Sudworth moves family out of China after ‘campaign of harrassment’ by ruling party

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John Sudworth had been in China for nine years
BBC

A BBC journalist has relocated his family from China after a campaign of “personal attacks” as the Chinese state are alleged to have tracked his movements on CCTV after he reported on human rights abuses.

Award-winning journalist John Sudworth had been in the country for nine years reporting on Covid-19 and detention camps of Uighurs in Xinjiang where authorities are accused of carrying out human rights abuses on Uyghur and other ethnic Muslim minorities.

He revealed he fled to the airport with his family closely followed by plain-clothed policemen.

While the BBC did not elaborate on the exact reason for him moving to Taiwan, it said that "John’s work has exposed the truths the Chinese authorities did not want the world to know."

"The BBC is proud of John’s award-winning reporting during his time in Beijing and he remains our China correspondent," they added.

Daily Life In Wuhan
A person wears a mask and walks in front of Wuhan’s Hang Lung square
Getty Images

Mr Sudworth told BBC Radio 4’s Today: “Over the last few years the pressure and threats from the Chinese authorities as a result of my reporting here have been pretty constant.

“But in recent months they have intensified, the BBC has faced a full-on propaganda attack not just aimed at the organisation itself but at me personally, across multiple Communist-party controlled platforms.

“We have faced threats of legal action as well as massive surveillance now, obstruction and intimidation whenever and wherever we try to film.

“In the end we, as a family based in Beijing, along with the BBC, decided it was just too risky to carry on – which is, of course, sadly precisely the point of that kind of intimidation – and we have relocated to Taiwan.”

Mr Sudworth said other foreign journalists had been forced to make similar journeys to Taiwan, where there is much greater press freedom.

“We left in a hurry, followed by plain clothed police all the way to the airport and through the check-in hall, the true grim reality for reporters here being made clear all the way to the very end.”

The Global Times, a Chinese state-run website, reported that Mr Sudworth “who became infamous in China for his many biased stories distorting China’s Xinjiang policies and Covid-19 responses, has left the Chinese mainland and is now believed to be hiding in Taiwan”.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China tweeted they were The FCCC is “concerned and saddened” that Mr Sudworth left mainland China at short notice “amid concerns for his safety and that of his family”.

In a statement posted on Twitter, they said: “Sudworth left after months of personal attacks and disinformation targeting him and his BBC colleagues, disseminated by both Chinese state media and Chinese government officials.

“These included videos posted online by state media that named him and used footage of him obtained from Chinese police cameras.”

They added that Mr Sudworth had been kept on a variety of short-term visa’s causing him to struggle to settle and raise his family in China.

“This appeared to be in retaliation for his coverage of Xinjiang, the Covid-19 pandemic and other issues that Chinese foreign ministry officials repeatedly said had crossed ‘red lines’.”

It came after China banned BBC World News from airing in the country, a week after Ofcom stripped Chinese state broadcaster CGTN of its British broadcast licence

The Global Times, published by the Communist party’s official People’s Daily newspaper, quoted a Xinjiang party official on Wednesday as saying that a number of people in the region planned to sue the BBC for “producing fake news, spreading rumours about Xinjiang and slandering China’s policy in the region.”.

A spokeswoman for Taiwan’s foreign ministry, Joanne Ou, said it could not comment on individual cases but added: “We welcome all reporters from media outlets to come to Taiwan and enjoy freedom of the press and speech.”

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