China moans go beyond Stalinism and union policy

REGARDING the article “Time for a fresh look at China” (last issue): surely you cannot be serious — this goes beyond Stalinism.

Of course Chinese overseas students have nationalistic objections to coverage of human rights in China — why would such students have the massive funds to study abroad if their families didn’t support the regime?

What has been sad is the muted reporting of the situation in Kashgar and among the Uighurs, partly because the Olympic torch went through there under such heavy military clampdown that hardly any reports got out.

Didn’t the piece clash with resolutions taken at our union’s own ADM (page 24 of the same issue)?

Chinese and exiled journalists are risking their lives to report on slave labour factories producing many of our household goods, on the internment camps for Tibetan nomads and the persecution of Muslims, Buddhists, Christians and other beliefs.

How can our own magazine let them and us down by telling us that offering our solidarity is just a western ego trip?

We try to offer physical support to endangered journalists in Colombia — are you saying it’s wrong for us to do the same in a country whose government abuses the name of socialism?

Amanda Sebestyen
London NW1

The Journalist is published by the National Union of Journalists