China ‘ejects’ BuzzFeed journalist by failing to renew visa
Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China says the foreign ministry did not give a clear reason for declining Megha Rajagopalan’s renewal application
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) said on Wednesday that the foreign ministry had “effectively” ejected BuzzFeed News’ Beijing bureau chief from the country after declining to renew her visa.
Megha Rajagopalan, who is American and had been in China for six years, said on Twitter that the foreign ministry had “declined to issue me a new journalist visa” in May.
“They say this is a process thing, we are not totally clear why,” wrote Rajagopalan, who left the country in late February.
Rajagopalan has reported extensively on China’s security crackdown in Xinjiang, where rights groups say hundreds of thousands of mostly Muslim ethnic Uygurs are held in re-education camps.
The FCCC said in a statement that she had “conducted herself according to the highest journalistic standards while in China”.
The foreign ministry “declined to give a clear and transparent reason for denying her a visa”, it said.