Human rights activists have stated that China has a large number of secret police stations in Europe and North America. These seem to serve to “intimidate” overseas Chinese.
Canadian police investigate secret Chinese “police stations”. These would serve to monitor and even “threaten” members of the Chinese diaspora who clash with the system in Beijing.
Police confirmed Thursday that they are investigating two Chinese community centers in and around Montreal. It was previously known that investigations into similar offices were also underway in Vancouver and Toronto.
Canadian agencies make according to a report The NGO Safeguard Defenders is part of a hundred similar posts in 53 different countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The NGO said the posts were used to “harass, intimidate and coerce targets into returning to China where they would face persecution”.
In our neighboring country, investigative journalists are van RTL NewsAnd Follow the money Chinese police forces have set up “external service stations” in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The office in Amsterdam was led by two men who had worked in the Chinese police before emigrating to the Netherlands. A former Chinese soldier was involved in a center in Rotterdam run by the Chinese city of Fuzhou police.
An official promotional video tells of how offices like the one in Rotterdam are “clash hard against local and illegal criminal activities in Fuzhou that have ties to foreign Chinese”. Wang Jingyu, a Chinese defector who was granted asylum in the Netherlands, said he received a phone call from someone who said he worked at the office in Rotterdam. asked me to go back to china (Where there is a warrant for his arrest, ed.), to solve my problems. He also told me to think of my father. In addition, he received obscene messages from the same number.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledged the existence of the offices, but stated that they were merely “service points”. “It aims to help local Chinese citizens who need to apply online for an extension of an expired driver’s license,” the ministry told Dutch reporters. “The employees are enthusiastic foreign Chinese, not Chinese police officers.”
Trudeau is very concerned
Official papers for foreigners must also be arranged through an embassy or consulate in the Netherlands. Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra stated that no permission was requested for this, which is why the offices were closed. Police work, or intelligence gathering, is out of the question.
In Canada, too, the government is pledging decisive action. “When people from the Chinese diaspora are known to be threatened or live in a climate of fear, we are told, we cannot afford that in Quebec and Canada,” police spokesman Charles Poirier told TV channel Thursday. ICI RDI.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government was “very concerned” about the issue. “We ensure that the police follow this and that our intelligence services take it very seriously.”
