Kodak deletes post by French photographer who calls China's Xinjiang ‘Orwellian Dystopia’

The American photography company Kodak recently deleted an Instagram post featuring images of Xinjiang, taken by a French photographer who described the Chinese region as 'an Orwellian dystopia'. According to ANI, the now-deleted image was taken from the documentary photographer Patrick Wack’s new collection of pictures captured in China’s northwestern region from 2016 to 2020. The photo company apologised for sharing 10 of Wack’s images and for a post written by the photographer in which he described the work as a 'visual narrative of the region and is a testimony to its abrupt descent into an Orwellian dystopia'.

Kodak apologised for any 'misunderstanding' that the post might have caused. In a statement, the company said, “Content from the photographer Patrick Wack was recently posted on this Instagram page. The content of the post was provided by the photographers and was not authored by Kodak”. 

“Kodak's Instagram page is intended to enable creativity by providing a platform for promoting the medium of film. It is not intended to be a platform for political commentary,” the statement added. 

Wack’s post featured the detention of Uyghur Muslims. In the caption, Wack had said that the region has been at the centre of an international outcry following the mass incarceration of its Uyghur population and other Muslim minorities. He even added that this body of work captures a visual narrative of the region and is a testimony to its abrupt descent into an 'Orwellian dystopia'. 

Xinjiang dispute 

Meanwhile, this incident comes amid growing calls among some western states for an investigation into whether Beijing’s actions in Xinjiang amount to genocide. The US, Britain and Canada have described China’s policies in Xinjiang as 'genocide'. However, the Chinese government has rejected the allegations and characterised the camps, which it says are now closed, as vocational training centres to teach the Chinese language, job skills and the law in order to support economic development and combat extremism.  

The rights groups, on the other hand, accused Beijing of forcibly sterilising women and imposing forced labour. The European Union, Britain, Canada and the United States have sanctioned several members of Xinjiang’s political and economic hierarchy in coordinated action over the allegations. The US State Department estimates that since 2017, up to two million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities could have passed through the camp system, which China calls vocational training centres designed to fight extremism. Reports by Western media have also revealed that Chinese authorities were deliberately sending Uyghur women of childbearing age into forced abortions, intrauterine injections and sterilisation in the region.

(Image: Instagram/AP)