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China opened a police office in the U.S. to monitor its citizens living abroad.
Not only has the Chinese regime sent spies to the U.S. and managed to plagiarize confidential information and intellectual property, but it has now also set up a “police service station” located in New York.
A report by Safeguard Defenders, a human rights organization, denounced that these operations violate the international rule of law and “may violate the territorial integrity in third countries involved in setting up a parallel policing mechanism using illegal methods.”
The report notes that Europe hosts most of the police stations, but North America also hosts four of the stations, with three locations in Toronto and one in NYC.
The NGO argues that the stations have been used to enhance China’s law enforcement capabilities abroad, in possible violation of international law, with potential human rights abuses including the use of harassment and intimidation methods, such as threatening family members of citizens abroad.
The stations have also served as centers for disseminating Chinese government propaganda and monitoring the behavior and opinions of its citizens.
“As these operations continue to develop and new mechanisms are set up, it is evident that countries governed by the standards set by universal human rights and the rule of law urgently need to investigate these practices to identify the (local) actors at work, mitigate the risks and effectively protect the growing number of those targeted,” the report concludes.
China: Dual-function agencies
According to the report these police service stations are primarily set up to perform a number of administrative tasks, to assist overseas Chinese, but they also have a much more sinister and entirely illegal purpose.
“Some official anecdotes of official operations explicitly cite the active involvement of the Hometown Associations on the ground in tracking and pursuing targets,” the report says.
Sabrina Martín Rondon is a Venezuelan journalist. Her source is politics and economics. She is a specialist in corporate communications and is committed to the task of dismantling the supposed benefits of socialism // Sabrina Martín Rondon es periodista venezolana. Su fuente es la política y economía. Es especialista en comunicaciones corporativas y se ha comprometido con la tarea de desmontar las supuestas bondades del socialismo