US hits China after reporter’s visa denial

BEIJING— The United States is “deeply concerned” about China’s treatment of foreign and domestic journalists, the US embassy said Friday, after Chinese authorities declined to renew the visa of BuzzFeed News’s Beijing bureau chief.

Megha Rajagopalan, who is American and had been in China for six years, was effectively forced out of the country after officials decided not to extend her journalist visa.

She has reported extensively on China’s security crackdown in the far-west region of Xinjiang, where hundreds of thousands of mostly Muslim ethnic Uighurs are believed to be held in internment camps.

“The United States is deeply concerned that foreign and domestic journalists in China continue to face excessive restrictions that impede their ability to do their jobs,” the US embassy said in a statement to AFP in response to questions about Rajagopalan’s case.

Reporters face “delays in processing foreign journalist visas, overboard restrictions on travel to certain locations deemed ‘sensitive’ by Chinese authorities and, in some cases, violence at the hands of local authorities”, it said.

Rajagopalan said on Twitter that the reasons for the government’s decision to deny her a visa extension remain unclear, with authorities telling her it was a “process thing”.

China’s foreign ministry played down the decision during a regular press briefing on Thursday, telling reporters that “this problem of a visa being ‘cancelled’ doesn’t exist.”