Belfast: Alleged Chinese ‘police station’ must be shut, says activist

A Belfast-based activist from Hong Kong has called on the UK government to shut down an alleged Chinese “police station” operating in Belfast.

Patrick Yu claimed they are being used to monitor Chinese citizens abroad.

There have been four alleged stations identified in the UK, with a senior MP claiming one operates in Northern Ireland.

The Chinese government has previously denied the claims.

It is estimated there are at least 100 such illegal bureaus across the world with widespread allegations of intimidation.

A Chinese “police station” in Dublin was ordered to close by the Irish government last October.

The UK government told BBC News NI it takes the claims very seriously.

The stations are understood to be operating in 53 countries, according to Spain-based human rights organisation Safeguard Defenders, which monitors disappearances in China.

Last month Alicia Kearns, the Conservative chair of Westminster’s foreign affairs Committee, told the House of Commons that the UK was vulnerable to “Chinese transnational repression”.

“It is still true that there are four illegal police stations operating in the country that we know of – the one in Belfast seems to be missing from much of the reporting,” she said.

The Safeguard Defenders report identified two of the facilities in London with another in Glasgow.

Former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was previously in contact with police over the facility, which reportedly operated out of a restaurant.

In April the Times newspaper reported one of the alleged stations is operating in Croydon, south London.

Elsewhere, US prosecutors arrested two men in New York last month for allegedly operating one of the stations while Dutch media found evidence that the stations were being used to try to silence Chinese dissidents in Europe.

It is alleged that the underground policing units exist to carry out persuasion operations, aimed at coercing those suspected of speaking out against the Chinese regime to return home.

Mr Yu, who has lived in Northern Ireland for about 30 years and sits on the board of the NI Council for Racial Equality (NICRE), told BBC News NI: “I think it’s about the monitoring of Chinese citizens and a way of threatening them.

“If you’re a Chinese citizen the government is always watching you.”

Mr Yu, who helped organise some of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, said he is unable to return to Hong Kong because of his campaigning and the National Security Law enacted in Hong Kong in 2020.

He said the government should take the necessary action to shut down any alleged police stations operating in the UK.

Conservative MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith told the Commons that the security services had warned the UK government about the existence of these stations.

“We know that they are bringing Chinese dissidents in, confronting them with videos of their families and threatening their families in front of them if they do not co-operate, leave and go back to China,” said the former Conservative leader.

During the same debate, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MP Jim Shannon said: “I have some constituents who are Chinese expats who have told me that they feel they have been followed.

“They are pretty sure that their phones have been tapped.”

He later told Belfast Live: “Their concerns are that they have family back home in Hong Kong and… they’re very conscious that whatever they do or say that the Chinese authorities, or whoever it may be, are keeping a tab on them.”

The EU director of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, Mark Sabah, told BBC News NI that UK authorities “have done nothing” on the matter of Chinese-controlled stations, despite mounting political pressure.

“If the [Belfast station] is in any way aligned with the two in London and the one in Glasgow then it should be immediately shut down and the owner called in for questioning or expelled,” he said.

Amnesty International in Northern Ireland said the government should tell Chinese authorities it “will not tolerate the long arm of Chinese state oppression here”.

Patrick Corrigan, the head of Amnesty International NI, said: “Any Chinese ‘police station’ being used to spy on Hong Kong and mainland Chinese communities in Belfast – or anywhere else in the UK – must be shut down immediately.

“The UK authorities need to steadfastly protect Hong Kong and mainland Chinese people against any intimidation by Beijing.”

A UK government spokesperson said: “Reports of alleged, undeclared ‘police stations’ operating in the UK are of course very concerning and are taken extremely seriously.

“Attempts by foreign governments to coerce, intimidate, harass or harm their critics overseas, undermining democracy and the rule of law, are unacceptable. We are committed to tackling these challenges wherever they originate.”