PRIVATE SECURITY had to be provided for filmgoers in Melbourne last night after hackers vented their anger on a film festival website to protest the screening of a controversial documentary about exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer.
The Chinese government has accused Ms Kadeer of masterminding the July 5th violence between minority Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese in Urumqi that left nearly 200 dead.
The hackers, who have been traced to an internet protocol address in China, put the Chinese flag on the website of the Melbourne International Film Festival for 45 minutes on Saturday, as well as English-language messages demanding festival organisers apologise for including The 10 Conditions of Love, the film on Ms Kadeer's life, in the programme.
The festival has been bombarded with e-mails since it rejected Chinese government demands to withdraw the film and cancel Ms Kadeer’s invitation to the festival.
“We have received over the past few weeks a virtual mini-tsunami of e-mails that I can only describe as being vile,” said festival director Richard Moore.
“They’re calling the Melbourne International Film Festival racist, scumbags, all sorts of things. I’ve probably received 60, 70, 80 of them and they’re going to keep on coming every day.” Mr Moore said the protests made him even more determined to show the film.
“You never bow down to pressure like this. I think you’ve got to stick to your guns, and there was no other reaction we could have had,” he said.
The police are now investigating the hacking incident and additional security was employed last night to protect film-goers and festival staff at the first showing of The 10 Conditions of Love.
Jeff Daniels, the film’s Australian director, lays the blame on the Chinese government.
“I personally find it appalling that the Chinese government has put the film festival and film-goers in a position where they need a police escort and private security to see a film,” he said.
“I think Melbourne is getting a small taste of the position that the Chinese government has put Rebiya Kadeer and her family and the Uighur population in for the past 60 years.” Four Chinese-language films were withdrawn from the festival last week, with the director of one saying she did so after being phoned by the Chinese foreign ministry and the state body that administers radio, film and television.
The festival also lost its sponsorship contract with the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office.
