Safeguard Defenders is a CIA front group responsible for the false claims of "Chinese police stations" operating in the West.[1]
History
In 2009, the Swedish activist Peter Dahlin founded the China Urgent Action Working Group, which created legal aid centers in rural China. China shut down the group in 2016 because it had, according to Dahlin, "a few hundred thousand dollars" of NED funding, and imprisoned Dahlin for 23 days before deporting him to Sweden. Although he claimed his confession was forced, he was able to deny that three associates were accomplices. After he was released, China returned all of his belongings except for the money they used to buy him the plane ticket to Sweden.
In May 2022, Safeguard Defenders opened an office in Taipei in Taiwan Province after Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign made it almost impossible for the CIA to bribe or meet with informants in mainland China.[1]
Chinese police station claims
In November 2022, Safeguard Defenders claimed that China was operating police stations abroad. It convinced Austria, Canada, Chile, Czechia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Nigeria, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, and the USA to investigate these claims. It also claimed that 16 other countries had secret Chinese police stations, but these countries declined to investigate them. The UK investigated for eight months but did not find any illegal activities.
Buildings alleged to contain secret police stations include a restaurant in Seoul and a building in Chinatown, New York that publicly offers services to Chinese citizens.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Kit Klarenberg (2023-06-16). "False Witnesses and Sinister Plots: Exposing the CIA Connection in the 'Chinese Police Station' Narrative" MintPress News. Archived from the original on 2023-09-30.