racism rowBeijing, Oct 13 (AFP) A Chinese museum has removedphotographs which compare African people to animals from acontroversial exhibition after being accused of racism, thecurators said today.
Social media users in Africa had led outrage over themontages, including one showing an open-mouthed African childalongside a monkey in the same pose, and another showing ablack adult man baring his teeth alongside a photograph of alion.
Following the complaints, a dozen offending works wereremoved from the exhibition called "This is Africa", which hasbeen showing for three weeks at the Hubei Provincial Museum,in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
"To show our goodwill and sincerity, we have replaced thephotos that our African friends find shocking," curator WangYuejun told AFP.
The exhibition contained 150 images by photographer YuHuiping, who has visited Africa many times and "greatly loves"the continent, said Wang.
In creating his collection the photographer was simplytrying to "show the harmony between man and animal in Africa",the curator said. "There is no discrimination at all in this."It is not the first time in recent years that Chineseinstitutions have been accused of showing a lack ofsensitivity on race.
Last year, a laundry product firm apologised after a TVadvertisement for its detergent showed a black man beingforced into a washing machine before emerging transformed intoan Asian man.(AFP)AMS.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.