Irish journalist and family forced out of Beijing by ‘pressure and threats’

The BBC said John Sudworth had “exposed truths the Chinese authorities did not want the world to know” and he would continue his work as China correspondent from Taiwan.

Irish journalist Yvonne Murray has told of how she and her husband BBC China correspondent John Sudworth and their three children had to leave China because of mounting pressure from the Chinese Authorities.

Ms Murray told RTÉ radio’s News at One that they had made the decision to leave after the Chinese authorities began coordinated personalised attacks.

“In the end we couldn't justify raising a young family in that atmosphere.” 

Two of the couple’s three children were born in China and they all speak fluent Chinese.

The family, who lived in China for 10 years, are now in quarantine in Taipei where they will remain and the couple will report on China.

Ms Murray said it had been upsetting for the children when the family was watched by plain clothes policemen as they loaded their luggage into the taxi and were followed to the airport where they were observed until they boarded their flight.

“In the end it’s a sad departing memory. But they can’t take away our wonderful memories.” 

Her husband said he had faced surveillance, obstruction and intimidation as he reported on issues including human rights abuses in Xinjiang province and the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

The BBC said he had “exposed truths the Chinese authorities did not want the world to know” and he would continue his work as China correspondent from Taiwan.

Mr Sudworth told BBC Radio 4’s Today: “Over the last few years the pressure and threats from the Chinese authorities as a result of my reporting here have been pretty constant.

“But in recent months they have intensified, 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.

“We have faced threats of legal action as well as massive surveillance now, obstruction and intimidation whenever and wherever we try to film.

“In the end we, as a family based in Beijing, along with the BBC, decided it was just too risky to carry on – which is, of course, sadly precisely the point of that kind of intimidation – and we have relocated to Taiwan.”

Mr Sudworth said other foreign journalists had been forced to make similar journeys to Taiwan, where there is much greater press freedom.

“We left in a hurry, followed by plain clothed police all the way to the airport and through the check-in hall, the true grim reality for reporters here being made clear all the way to the very end.”

The Global Times, a Chinese state-run website, reported that Mr Sudworth “who became infamous in China for his many biased stories distorting China’s Xinjiang policies and Covid-19 responses, has left the Chinese mainland and is now believed to be hiding in Taiwan”.