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RTÉ/PrimeTime

Irish journalist leaves China 'in a hurry' after coming under increased surveillance

Murray is married to senior BBC correspondent John Sudworth who faced backlash for his reporting on Xinjiang rights abuses.

LAST UPDATE | 31 Mar 2021

IRISH JOURNALIST YVONNE Murray, who regularly reports for RTÉ News, has said she and her family were forced to leave China after facing legal threats and pressure from Chinese authorities.

Murray is married to senior BBC correspondent John Sudworth who has faced backlash for his reporting on Xinjiang rights abuses and the coronavirus pandemic.

After coming under increased surveillance, Murray said the family made the decision to relocate to neighbouring Taiwan, leaving “in a hurry” last week. 

“It’s really because the pressure and the threats from the Chinese government just became too much, and this has been going on for some time,” Murray told RTÉ Radio’s News at One. 

She said authorities took particular issues with John’s reporting for the BBC and have been trying to hinder his work for the past three years. 

“When the BBC continued to report on stories that the government didn’t like they continued to ratchet up the pressure, they began coordinated personalised attacks via state media, and then legal threats,” said Murray. 

“And of course it’s worth noting, there’s no way for us as foreign correspondents to counteract those kinds of propaganda campaigns inside China because foreign news outlets are blocked.”

The decision to leave was very tough, she said, particularly as two of their three children were born in China and they all speak fluent Chinese.

“For them, it’s home. It’s particularly distressing for them to face the reality that they might never be able to go back to the place that they were born as long as the Chinese state is so determined to target and punish journalists for simply doing their job as we were.”

She said the family were followed by plainclothes police during their departure from China, something which confirmed “that we were making the right decision”. 

Both Murray and Sudworth said they will continue to cover China from their new base in Taipei, Taiwan.

“The Chinese government tells us that our reporting suggests that we hate China, and that’s just simply not the case, we wouldn’t have stayed so long if we didn’t like China,” said Murray.  

So in the end, you know the secret police who followed us as we left. It’s a sad, departing memory, but it can’t erase all the other happy memories we have from China and we’ll always have those.

At least 18 foreign correspondents were expelled by China last year, during a tit-for-tat row with the US that decimated the international press presence in the country.

Press freedom groups say space for foreign reporters to operate in China is increasingly tightly-controlled, with journalists followed on the streets, suffering harassment online and refused visas.

“The BBC has faced a full-on propaganda attack not just aimed at the organisation itself but at me personally across multiple Communist Party-controlled platforms,” Sudworth told BBC Radio 4.

“We face threats of legal action, as well as massive surveillance now, obstruction and intimidation, whenever and wherever we try to film,” he added.

In recent weeks, Chinese state media and officials have repeatedly attacked Sudworth for his reporting on alleged forced labour practices targeting Uyghur Muslim minorities in Xinjiang’s cotton industry in particular.

The BBC also confirmed Sudworth’s relocation after state media tabloid Global Times reported yesterday he was “hiding” in Taiwan.

“John’s work has exposed truths the Chinese authorities did not want the world to know,” the broadcaster said in a statement on Twitter.

RTÉ Managing Director for News and Current Affairs Jon Williams said “once she is ready,” Murray will continue to report on China from Taiwan for RTÉ. 

Xinjiang authorities said mid-March that Sudworth was the target of a civil lawsuit for producing “fake news” about the region.

“Everyone knows that the BBC broadcasts a large number of fake news with strong ideological bias,” Hua Chunying, spokeswoman of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told reporters in Beijing.

But she denied the government had been behind the move to sue him and instead admonished Sudworth for leaving in a hurry and not clearing his name.

“Why did he run away? What does this show?” she said.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China, an unofficial advocacy organisation for foreign media operating in China, said Sudworth “forms one of an ever-larger number of journalists driven out of China by unacceptable harassment.”

It added that he had been kept on “a series of short visas, variously lasting one, three and six months,” putting pressure on his ability to raise his young family.

The club noted that attacks on Sudworth and the BBC escalated after the British broadcasting regulator revoked the license of Chinese state TV channel CGTN in February.

The Chinese Embassy in Ireland said it “noticed that Ms Yvonne Murray ‘took the decision’ to leave China with her family, according to her own words”.

“According to Chinese media reports, her husband John Sudworth, BBC China correspondent, is criticised by a lot of Chinese for his unfair, unobjective and biased reporting on China. There are also reports that some people and entities in Xinjiang, China are considering suing him for the serious harm his reporting has caused,” the Embassy told TheJournal. 

The Chinese Embassy in Ireland also tweeted: “Nobody has forced or will force her. Sensationalist presentation sells paper but won’t for too long”.

In response, Fine Gael TD Neale Richmond said: “Freedom of the press my eye. A disgraceful & wholly undiplomatic statement.”

Richmond said the Chinese Ambassador to Ireland He Xiangdong should be summoned “urgently”.

Ireland co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, Senator Barry Ward said Ireland must make it clear to China that “this kind of behaviour is not acceptable”

Chinese official allegations of ‘fake news’, misinformation and false reporting against legitimate journalists reporting on the Uighur internment camps in Xinjiang, merely further lower China’s standing with the international community and convinces us that the Chinese Communist Party must answer for its abuses of human rights and fundamental freedoms. 

“We must not allow the suppression of facts to occur by the exclusion of journalists.” 

Fianna Fáil TD Malcolm Byrne has urged Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney to call in the Chinese Ambassador to Ireland “as a matter of urgency” to explain why Murray has been forced to leave the country.  

“The continuing deterioration in press freedom and human rights in China is deeply concerning,” said Byrne. 

“There is an urgent need for an Oireachtas debate on the deteriorating human rights behaviour in China. My Oireachtas colleagues and I are deeply concerned about genocide against the Uighur people, the repression of democracy and free press in Hong Kong and ongoing abuses against the Tibetan people and other minorities.  

“In light of these human rights abuses there needs to be a serious review of the European-China trade deal.”  

Byrne has also called for the government to support demands to move next year’s Winter Olympics from Beijing “to deny the Chinese government the chance to use the Games for propaganda purposes.” 

- Additional reporting from AFP

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    Mute Jon Mackey
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    Mar 5th 2016, 7:18 AM

    Says quite a lot about the Irish electorate and their short term memory

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    Mute Vladimir Vasyectomy
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    Mar 5th 2016, 7:09 AM

    ” back at the top table.” = ” back at the trough.”

    192
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    Mute hw007
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    Mar 5th 2016, 7:18 AM

    I reckon Fianna Fáil will break all promise s again !

    106
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    Mute Liz Finn
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    Mar 5th 2016, 7:23 AM

    Well they’ve done just that at least twice before so I reckon it’s a safe bet hwoo7.

    62
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    Mute Daz
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    Mar 5th 2016, 7:38 AM

    THE GOOD TIMES ARE BACK BABY. WHAT COULD GO WRONG

    100
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    Mute Mick Hannigan
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    Mar 5th 2016, 7:46 AM

    If you always do what you have always done you will always get what you always had and that’s what we have done, voted back in idiots who helped cause all our problems in the first place, I call them idiots more like we the people are idiots

    83
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    Mute Pauline Long
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    Mar 6th 2016, 12:23 AM

    Yes ” madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different result?s” Einstein

    3
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    Mute Les Behan
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    Mar 5th 2016, 9:27 AM

    This election proved something I have been saying for years now : “The Irish electorate are a bunch of fickle mush heads.”

    60
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    Mute Nick Caffrey
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    Mar 5th 2016, 10:58 AM

    I wish I could give you one thousand green thumbs. It is the ELECTORATE that puts these greedy pigs in power. We ALONE are responsible for the state of the country. We resent any kind of taxation in spite of the fact that it is how we provide infrastructure. We just cannot let go of the “oppressive taxation” memories.

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    Mute Iúrach
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    Mar 5th 2016, 7:20 AM

    Do they each get their own gravy boat?

    53
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    Mute Jimmy jones
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    Mar 5th 2016, 9:46 AM

    Michael Martin is the main player and he was a Bertie underling.

    How come nobody mentions the developer Owen O Callaghan any more and how his “donation” ended up in Micheal Martin’s wife’s bank account ?

    http://www.broadsheet.ie/2011/02/11/so-why-did-that-money-end-up-in-your-wifes-account-mr-martin/

    46
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    Mute john kinsella
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    Mar 5th 2016, 10:33 AM

    I wonder what Owen O’ Callaghan would call a water company if one just in his lap?

    13
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    Mute Rowan Murphy
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    Mar 5th 2016, 7:09 AM

    Posed as an innocuous article. Teeing up the shot and walking away.

    44
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    Mute John Ward
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    Mar 5th 2016, 8:20 AM

    It seems that the IQ of our “cute hoor” professional politicians is significantly higher than the bulk of the electorate. The average here is 92. Just think what kind of vegetables actually have a vote!

    41
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    Mute tomas o beag
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    Mar 5th 2016, 8:33 AM

    Smug f***kers people have very short memories

    35
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    Mute Cally
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    Mar 5th 2016, 9:41 AM

    Maybe its just me but the worst result was ryan getting back in…already he was on primetime…supporting water charges…they cant help themselves with trying to tax people..the greens…no chance of saving our planet but boy can they tax you…

    23
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    Mute Mary Walshe
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    Mar 5th 2016, 9:15 AM

    But they (FF) did a great job in Government for themselves…they lined their own pockets with as much of the countrys money as they could grab before going out of office and told the rest of us to grin and bear it when the countrys cupboard was bare…obviously they have got the scent of money again now that the recovery is underway.

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    Mute Tommy Berry
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    Mar 5th 2016, 4:31 PM

    No, the cupboard wasn’t bare , the Bert was inside it.

    9
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    Mute Mary Walshe
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    Mar 5th 2016, 9:05 AM

    The Foxes are back in the henhouse…financial blood will be spilled and lost again and we the electorate will live to regret the result of the 2016 election should FF form a government or even hold a minority government to ransom.

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    Mute Paul Wallace
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    Mar 5th 2016, 9:08 AM

    They are back and back BIG STYLE

    17
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    Mute Paul Dunne
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    Mar 5th 2016, 8:47 AM

    ff would and will do it all again beacuse they think they did a great job in government.

    16
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    Mute John Campbell
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    Mar 5th 2016, 9:05 AM

    Don’t be worrying too much. They were elected by a core vote of Old Fianna Fáil voters. They have 44 seats out of 158. They are snookered whichever choice they make , liquorice all sorts coalition or propping up a minority government. Why? Because they will have to support tough decisions for the good of the country NOT the Party and they will not have a free hand on stuffing every State and semi-State body with Party hacks.

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    Mute Winston Smith
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    Mar 5th 2016, 10:45 AM

    Five years for treason with a lush pension. Where would you get it. If our Litigation laws weren’t so strict we could all be reminded more stringently through the media before elections of the Candidates past performances.

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    Mute Ivorpabst
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    Mar 5th 2016, 3:34 PM

    Callely should have had a go – he would have made it, given the national amnesia which returned the likes of Haughey etc.

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    Mute Seán Domhnall O'Sullivan
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    Mar 5th 2016, 11:22 PM

    Completely embarrassing and cringe worthy for Ireland.

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    Mute Aisling Farrell
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    Mar 5th 2016, 8:33 PM

    Another Haughey. God help us.

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