In April 2023, one of two men arrested for running an illegal Chinese police station persecuting anti-communists in New York City. begged The Department of Justice confirmed Wednesday that he was guilty of one of two charges in the case.
Chen Jinping and “Harry” Lu Jiangwan were arrested on charges of conspiracy as agents of the Chinese government and obstruction of justice for allegedly deleting evidence of communications with Chinese Communist Party officials. It was done. Chen pled guilty to the conspiracy charge, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison (the obstruction of justice charge carries a total sentence of 20 years). The Department of Justice announced Wednesday that Lu had pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The scandal that China is setting up illegal secret police stations around the world to persecute dissidents broke out in September 2022 after the human rights group Safeguard Defenders released a report. did. The report detailed how China used the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic as a pretext to persecute dissidents. It was called a “service center” and was ostensibly intended to help overseas Chinese renew their passports, licenses, and other legal documents. In practice, the “service centers” hunted down prominent political dissidents, sometimes harassing their families and forcing their return to China's strict judicial system. There is no evidence that China has notified targeted countries (a long list that includes France, Spain, Brazil, Nigeria, and Canada, among others) of its domestic law enforcement activities.
Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York repeated In comments on Wednesday following Chen's guilty plea, he said the illegal police station was a “transnational repression” mechanism to silence critics of China's genocidal regime.
“Today, on behalf of the National Police of the People's Republic of China, a participant in a cross-border repression scheme who helped establish a secret police station in the heart of New York City pleaded guilty to conspiracy as an illegal agent. ” Peace said in a statement. “We will continue our efforts to protect the rights of vulnerable people who come to this country to escape the repressive activities of the dictatorship.”
The “vulnerable populations” targeted by these schemes, the Justice Department originally alleged in its 2023 indictment, include political opponents of communism and members of persecuted minorities such as Tibetans and Uyghurs. It was claimed that. For decades, China has carried out a policy of ethnic cleansing in Tibet, forcing children to learn Mandarin, the region's foreign language, and separating them from their families, religion and culture. In East Turkestan, the homeland of the Uyghur people, China uses concentration camps, “boarding schools” to kidnap children, and forced sterilization to wipe out the indigenous population of the occupied territory. They have committed genocide against people and other Turkic ethnic minorities such as Kyrgyzstans. .
James Dennehy, the FBI official working on the case, released a statement on Wednesday saying the illegal police station discovered in Manhattan was not pursuing legitimate crimes, as evidence suggests, but rather an anti-communist crime. He reaffirmed that it was intended to silence the partisans.
“This illegal police station was not opened for public safety purposes, but to further China's evil and repressive objectives in direct violation of American sovereignty,” Dennehy said. .
American law enforcement has accused Mr. Chen and Mr. Lu of working directly with China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS) to suppress American political opponents. Wednesday's press statement about Chen's guilty plea to the conspiracy charge does not suggest that he made similar statements on the more serious obstruction of justice charge, and the U.S. government does not believe the two men are guilty of being MPS operatives. He claims to have deleted the communications. The Manhattan Police Department was said to be operating as an extension of the MPS Fuzhou Police Branch.
After the announcement of the 2023 indictment, U.S. Attorney Peace said that among the specific activities the illegal police department was conducting was “detection of Chinese dissidents living in the United States” with the purpose of harassing and muzzling them. It also included “supporting the
The 2023 indictment against Chen and Lu was carried out in parallel with the Justice Department. announcement The company has also accused 44 people, many of whom are believed to be in China, of “harassing Chinese dissidents” on social media and threatening an unnamed U.S. telecommunications company to oppose the regime. The company said it is threatening to prevent other companies from using its technology to hold virtual events. About human rights. Dozens of those charged were identified as likely Chinese police officers.
“China's Ministry of Public Security used its agents to target people of Chinese descent who had the courage to speak out against the Chinese Communist Party,” FBI Counterintelligence Division Acting Deputy Director Kurt Ronow said at the time. . “We will not tolerate [Chinese Communist Party] Here in the United States, there is repression, an effort to intimidate, harass, and intimidate people. ”
New York City's illegal police department will reportedly cease operations in 2022.
The Chinese government has repeatedly claimed that the illegal police station is a US fabrication. asked Regarding Chen's guilty plea on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian claimed he was “not familiar with the details” of the case, adding: “There is no so-called secret police station.”
