In December 2015, her visa was not renewed and she was forced to leave the country after she published an article about Uyghurs in Xinjiang which Chinese government officials disapproved of.
[1] She was writing on Chinese police killing several Uighur people in Xinjiang which she claimed included women and children, all of whom they said were linked to an attack on a coal mine that happened in September.
[5][4] The controversy arose when Gauthier claimed that "abuse, injustice, expropriation" of Uighurs "probably" triggered retribution in the form of the mass slaughter at the coal mine.
News organizations from all over the world have reported Gauthier's expulsion from China from the New York Times[8] to Al Jazeera[13] in Qatar.
[14] Most reactions from journalists and news organizations alike were not in favor of the Chinese government's decision to expel Ursula Gauthier.