Canada has turned a blind eye to Chinese interference for too long, while the alleged “police stations” are just the tip of the iceberg of Beijing’s intrusion attempts, warns the NGO Safeguard Defenders.
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The Spanish organization, which revealed to the world the existence of Chinese “police stations” in some fifty countries last fall, testified Monday evening in Ottawa to the parliamentary committee responsible for studying relations between Canada and the China.
Its spokeswoman Laura Harth warned that Canada could expect “painful” times in its fight against Chinese interference.
« [Les présumés “postes de police”] are just the tip of the iceberg. Canada…has turned a blind eye for too long, hoping the problem would go away if we didn’t look at it. But that has only allowed these types of operations to grow in scale and put us at greater risk,” Harth said.
Three Canadians Forced
The organization Safeguard Defenders, which says it gathers its information from public sources of information from the Chinese government, also spoke of the concrete effects of the alleged “police stations” on Canadian soil.
These would be at the origin of the forced return of three Canadians to China to face the judicial authorities, according to the organization. One of the roles of these positions would indeed be to contribute to the Chinese anti-corruption campaign by forcing Chinese nationals to return to the country, in addition to controlling opponents in Beijing.
Ms. Harth also called on Canada not to limit itself to alleged “police stations”, but to investigate all networks in the country linked to the United Front Labor Department, the repressive wing of the Chinese Communist Party in the foreign.
She also congratulated the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which has opened various investigations into this subject, thus offering the “best” response to the phenomenon seen around the world according to Safeguard Defenders.
The Chinese Family Service of Greater Montreal and the Sino-Quebec Center of the South Shore are suspected of being, like four other centers identified elsewhere in the country by Safeguard Defenders, clandestine “police stations” for account of the Chinese authorities.
The RCMP mentioned last week that citizens of the Chinese diaspora could be intimidated or threatened by the Chinese communist regime in connection with these centers.
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