Italy would be most hosts Chinese police stations Hidden behind imaginary service centers in foreign territories in a network of over 100 worldwide. This was revealed by a report prepared by a Spanish group working on civil liberties that said the aim of these offices would be to monitor the Chinese population abroad and force the so-called “refugees” And dissidents return to their country of origin. Out of a total of 102it says in the report 11 Police offices would be located in Italy. In particular a Rome, Milan, Bolzano, Venice, Florence and Prato where the largest Chinese community in Italy resides. Beijing continues to support the hypothesis that they are “service stations” set up to help Chinese citizens complete bureaucratic procedures ranging from passport renewal to driver’s licenses. On the contrary, the report released today, Monday December 5, shows how these (unofficial) police offices are being used by China to “harass, threaten, intimidate and coerce so-called ‘refugees’ to return to China to… to be followed there”. As evidence for all of this, the Spanish group claims to have evidence. A Chinese national who arrived in Prato in 2002 was forced to return to China 13 years later by regime authorities on charges embezzlement. A week after his return to his country of origin, nothing more was heard from him. With that in mind, Chinese officials intimidated his return to China instead of, for example, filing an extradition request. “We have received information from the Department for Public Information which shows that in just one year 210,000 people have been persuaded to return,” said Laura Harth, Safeguard Defenders campaign manager, as quoted by the British newspaper.
Milan and Rome: the “two pilot projects”
Milan and Rome – according to the report – the “two pilot projects” to open up the police stations would be used to repatriate the Chinese “refugees”. The first was set up in May 2016 in the Lombard capital by the Wenzhou Public Security Agency. To then expand its openings on European territory from Prato to Paris. According to Istat data from 2021, Italy hosts the entire national territory 330 thousand Chinese citizens. A figure that makes it possible to highlight how our territory is a “fertile ground” for a potential influence of Beijing – also due to a multitude of agreements between the two countries. Among them, L’Espresso reports, is a joint police patrol program first signed by then-Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni in 2015 (reinforced in 2017) under which Chinese police are temporarily patrolling Italian cities, ostensibly to help Chinese tourists. The idea of bringing refugees back to China has precedents. In 2014, for example, Beijing launched Operationfox hunting», or «Fox Hunt», a real campaign – organized by Chinese President Xi Jinping – to forcibly deport people to China using methods such as retaliation against relatives and torture. In conclusion, the report notes that “despite having the largest number of liaison outposts on its territory, the Italian government is among the very few European countries that have not yet publicly announced or declared illegal investigations into Chinese police stations abroad.”
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