Hackers posted a Chinese flag on the Web site of an Australian film festival in an escalation of protests against the planned appearance by an exiled Uighur activist whom Beijing blames for deadly ethnic riots in China's west, an official said Sunday.
The cyber attack on the Melbourne International Film Festival _ which also received a flurry of critical e-mails _ came after four Chinese films pulled out of the event and a Chinese diplomat protested the screening of a documentary about activist Rebiya Kadeer, whom Beijing says incited the violence this month between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese that left nearly 200 dead.
China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang criticized the screening and Kadeer's planned appearance earlier this month, saying: ``Everyone knows the kind of person that Rebiya is. We are firmly opposed to any foreign country providing her with a stage for her anti-China separatist activities.''
Kadeer, who lives in exile in the United States and will attend the festival in Australia's second largest city Aug. 8, denies any role in the ethnic violence _ the worst China has seen in decades.
Festival spokeswoman Louise Heseltine said a hacker put a Chinese flag on the Web site for 45 minutes on Saturday _ the day after the festival opened _ as well as English-language messages demanding that festival organizers apologize to all Chinese for including Kadeer in the program.
The Web site host
discovered hundreds of other attempts to hack into it, Heseltine said.
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