Renowned Chinese photographer detained in Xinjiang
An award-winning Chinese photographer who focused on social, health and environmental issues in China has been detained in Xinjiang, according to media reports.
Lu Guang, 57, was touring the remote northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region earlier this month when his wife Xu Xiaoli lost contact with him. He was scheduled to meet a friend in Sichuan but did not show up, Xu was quoted in media reports as saying.
Xu said her husband was taken away by security agents, according to a report in The Guardian.
“A friend of Xu helped her inquire about her husband’s whereabouts in his home province of Zhejiang, where authorities said Lu and a fellow photographer had been taken away by Xinjiang state security,” The Guardian report said.
It wasn’t immediately clear if he was working on any photography project in Xinjiang where several thousands from the Muslim Uyghur community have been interred in camps. “Lu never had problems with the police before, according to Xu, who added that she was not aware of any photo projects he had planned for his Xinjiang trip,” the report said.
Lu is known for focusing on the poor and those left behind or affected by China’s march towards economic prosperity.
“A freelance photographer since 1993, Lu Guang has developed major documentary projects in China, all at his own initiative, focusing on some of the most significant social, health, and environmental issues facing his country today,” the World Press Photo website said about Lu.
“His photographic work includes stories on gold diggers, local coal miners, the SARS epidemic, drug addiction along the Sino-Burmese border, AIDS villages in Henan Province, the environmental impact of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, industrial pollution and the medical effects of schistosomiasis (bilharzia),” the website said.
In October, China sought to legalise the controversial camps in the province as “vocational training institutes” where inmates influenced by religious extremism will be re-educated and transformed.
The institutes will also psychologically treat the camp inmates to be more patriotic, the revised law said.