Coming to a street near you...
Safeguard Defenders is a human rights NGO focusing on violations by the Chinese government. According to their
website, the NGO was started in Beijing in 2009 under the name “China Action”, founded by human rights activists Peter Dahlin (Sweden) and Michael Caster (US) and a small group of Chinese human rights lawyers and other human rights defenders. I don’t know where their funding comes from. It would be interesting to do a Polly on them.
The NGO has just issued a
report on a Chinese program by the name “110 Overseas”. The program is part of China’s Fox Hunt operation, run by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, which in turn is one of several components of the wider Sky Net operation overseen by the National Supervision Commission. Its job is to establish overseas police “service stations” in a number of countries to round up Chinese expats suspected of telecom fraud and “persuade” them to return to China to be tried and imprisoned. It is reasonable to assume that “telecom fraud” is a euphemism for “political dissidence” and that the program is an attempt to both disguise and legitimize persecution outside Mainland China.
If you are wondering about the “11” reference, the number 110 is the emergency phone number in China, the equivalent of 911 in the US.
From the report...
These methods allow the CCP and their security organs to circumvent normal bilateral mechanisms of police and judicial cooperation, thereby severely undermining the international rule of law and territorial integrity of the third countries involved.
[...]
It leaves legal Chinese residents abroad fully exposed to extra-legal targeting by the Chinese police, with little to none of the protection theoretically ensured under both national and international law.
[...]
The majority of overseas police “service stations” are in western democratic nations, with a particular focus on Europe, and not in the “nine forbidden countries”.
The “nine forbidden countries” mentioned above (Turkey, the UAE, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Philippines and Indonesia) are said to be where the runaway Chinese “telecom scammers” hang out the most, and the Chinese government can, in practice and if they so desire, prevent any Chinese national from living in these countries. According to reports, there are now 54 such police “service stations” operating in 30 countries, but the number could well be higher.
Many “service stations” operate through fronts such as federations of industry and commerce. This may indeed be the case with the station located in São Paulo, Brazil. Google Maps shows a building with a sign saying “Associação Brasileira dos Empresários de Fujian” (the name Fujian is for some reason blurred out).
Established on 21 June 2017, the
“Association” has for business purpose “activities of associations for the defense of social rights, culture and art”, which could mean anything. However, the current status is “terminated due to voluntary liquidation”.
