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Kaohsiung reconsiders screening of Kadeer film

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-19 08:53

TAIPEI: Officials in Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second-largest city, are reconsidering plans to show a film about Uygur businesswoman-turned-separatist Rebiya Kadeer over concerns it would upset the mainland, officials said on Friday.

The tensions are higher than usual, just weeks after the Dalai Lama's visit to the island.

The move came after the city's hotel association had reportedly asked the city government to remove the film for fear of further damages to local tourism.

The documentary had been scheduled to be screened at next month's annual film festival in Kaohsiung, whose mayor, Chen Chu, is backed by Taiwan's pro-"independence" opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

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Mainland officials say that Kadeer, a former businesswoman who now leads the World Uygur Congress, orchestrated a deadly riot on July 5 in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, killing nearly 200 people.

"We've had plans to show the film, but we're now doing a re-evaluation," Kaohsiung spokesman Chang Chia-hsing said.

Beijing sounded off against the film on Wednesday.

"We do not hope for any repeat of incidents that might disturb the peaceful development of cross-Straits relations," Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Yang Yi said at a regular news conference on Wednesday.

Kaohsiung and several opposition-led Taiwan counties irked Beijing earlier this month when they invited the Dalai Lama to visit, and to pray for victims of Typhoon Morakot, which killed up to 770 people.

Some mainland travel agents have avoided Kaohsiung hotels since the Dalai Lama's visit, contributing to a marked September decline in room bookings, said Taipei Association of Travel Agents official Anthony Liao.

The industrial port city, with a population of 1.5 million, has struggled through the global economic downturn as Taiwan exports declined and is looking to tourism as a new income source.

Hotels in Kaohsiung have received thousands of mainland cancellations since early this month, the Taipei-based China Times reported.

At least 200 reservations for October have also been called off, and bookings are scarce for the mainland's Oct 1 National Day holiday, the report added.

The paper quoted unnamed tourism operators as saying the Dalai Lama's visit to Kaohsiung was the main reason for the cancellations, causing an estimated six million Taiwan dollars ($185,000) in lost revenue.

China Daily, AP and AFP