NEW YORK: Human Rights Watch (HRW), a US-based advocacy group, has accused Chinese authorities of harassing several dozen Chinese film directors and producers, along with their families in China, to compel them to withdraw their films from the inaugural IndieChina Film Festival in New York City.
The rights body stated that on Thursday, the festival’s organiser, Zhu Riku, announced that the film festival, scheduled for November 8-15, had been “suspended.”
“The Chinese government reached around the globe to shut down a film festival in New York City. This latest act of transnational repression demonstrates the Chinese government’s aim to control what the world sees and learns about China, ” said Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at HRW.