Commentary
Few people could have missed the revelation from Safeguard Defenders that local Chinese police are running overseas police “service stations.” Over the last month, local media has been investigating the illegal centers, and more and more remarkable information is being revealed weekly.
The latest such revelation is the existence of additional stations in Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands. Media outlets in the Netherlands have been able to pinpoint the police outposts “persuading” Chinese residents to return to China to face criminal charges. The illegal police stations circumvent normal legal channels and essentially carry out police work on foreign soil.
Prior to this, Safeguard Defenders had investigated the actions of the “service stations” in Spain and Serbia. However, finding people willing to speak is nearly impossible. Despite that, China’s Foreign Ministry has acknowledged engaging in these actions, in a response to Spanish media, blaming extraditions (the normal, lawful way to seek someone’s return), as “cumbersome” and saying that European countries sometimes deny its requests….