Taiwan city screens film about Uighur activist

Hundreds of Taiwanese viewed a controversial documentary Tuesday about an exiled Uighur activist, ignoring a Beijing warning against its screening.

About a dozen people chanted anti-China slogans and help up signs critical of China outside the Kaohsiung Film Archive where "The 10 Conditions of Love" - a film about U.S.-based World Uighur Congress leader Rebiya Kadeer - was screened.

"I would hate to miss this documentary all the more because of Beijing's protest," Lin Hsiu-mei, a retired teacher, said in a phone interview from Kaohsiung as she lined up in a queue at the ticketing office.

The municipal government in Taiwan's second-largest city originally planned to screen the documentary at a film festival next month, but later decided to screen it earlier to end the controversy.

China says Kadeer was behind July riots that left nearly 200 people dead in China's Xinjiang province, a charge she has denied.

Beijing has said the film "distorts the facts and glorifies a separatist," and warned the Kaohsiung city against stirring up trouble in cross-strait relations.

Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949, but their relations have warmed recently.

Kaohsiung is a stronghold for the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, which supports Taiwan's independence from China.

Several lawmakers of Taiwan's ruling Nationalist Party disagreed with the filming, fearing it might undermine President Ma Ying-jeou's program to engage China economically.

"You wouldn't screen a documentary about bin Laden in Washington," said lawmaker Mei Tsai-hsin in reference to the al-Qaida leader.