The Chinese government has been accused of setting up at least two unannounced ‘police stations’ in the Netherlands.
The media report cited evidence that ‘foreign service stations’, which promise to provide diplomatic services, are being used to silence Chinese dissidents in Europe.
According to the BBC report, a spokesman for the Dutch Foreign Ministry said the existence of unofficial police posts is illegal.
However, the Chinese embassy said it was not aware of their existence.
The investigation started with a report by Spain-based NGO Safeguard Defenders.
According to the organization, the public security bureaus of the two Chinese provinces had set up 54 ‘foreign police service centers’ across five continents and 21 countries.
Most of them are in Europe, with nine in Spain and four in Italy. In the UK, it received two in London and one in Glasgow.
The units were explicitly created to deal with international crime and perform administrative duties such as renewing Chinese drivers’ licenses. But, according to Safeguard defenders, they are in fact ‘persuasion-operations’, aimed at forcing suspects to return home if they speak out against the Chinese regime.
RTL News and investigative journalism platform Follow the Money shared the story of a Chinese dissident, Wang Jingyu, who said he was being chased by Chinese police in the Netherlands.
Speaking in English, Wang told Dutch reporters that he had received a call earlier this year from someone claiming to be from such a station.
During the conversation, he said that he was urged to return to China to “solve my problems and think about his parents”. PLC/GT
