Included in the program of the Melbourne International Film Festival is a documentary about Uyghur leader, Rebiya Kadeer. It will be screened on August 8 despite strenuous objections by the Chinese government.

Just days after the Festival opened, its website came under attack by hackers operating from a Chinese internet protocol address. They sent a torrent of spam emails in an effort to crash the site and reportedly replaced program information with the Chinese flag and anti-Kadeer slogans.


Director Richard Moore says staff has been bombarded with abusive emails. He described the language in the messages as "vile."

The Festival is standing by its decision to screen the Kadeer film - The 10 Conditions of Love - despite the intimidation. Extra security is being put in place. Private security guards have been hired to provide protection for Ms Kadeer and other patrons.

The film has proved to be very popular and has sold out.

Three Chinese film directors have withdrawn their films from the festival in protest. The director of Perfect Life, Tang Xiaobai, told a Chinese daily that "I do not want to see my film screened on the same platform as a film about Kadeer."

Richard Moore says the hack attacks began about 10 days ago.

Moore:

We've been subjected to a number of these attacks and we can see behind the scenes on our website that there are hundreds, well, if not thousands, of people from outside of Australia trying to get into our website and trying to damage us.

This has been going on... since obviously the call from a Chinese consular official who told me in no uncertain terms that I was urged to withdraw this particular documentary from the film festival and that I had to justify my actions in including the film in our programme.

Hey, we're an independent arts organisation and it's our programme!

Australian police are currently investigating the website attacks.

Guardian article on attack - here.