China has stepped up the use of the country’s travel bans to “intimidate foreign journalists,” according to a report released Tuesday by a human rights group.
Since 2018, there have been at least four cases of foreign journalists being targeted or threatened with travel bans, including correspondents from Britain’s public broadcasters BBC and Australia’s ABC, according to Safeguard Defenders.
The Madrid-based non-governmental organization (NGO) said it believes the possible application of travel bans on journalists is part of “Beijing’s hostage-taking diplomacy, a retaliation against or a tactic to gain concessions from a foreign government”.
In other cases, “family members are often held hostage in China with travel bans to force the return of suspected economic crimes or political activists, including human rights defenders,” the report said.
Safeguard Defenders gave the example of Daniel Hsu and brothers Cynthia and Victor Liu, American citizens who for years were prevented from leaving China “to force their parents suspected of economic crimes to return to the country.
“Dozens of foreigners are also barred from leaving China if they work for a company involved in a civil dispute,” the group said.
Irish businessman Richard O’Halloran was barred from leaving China for more than three years, between 2019 and 2022, “although he wasn’t even working for the company when the dispute [comercial] started,” the report said.
Safeguard Defenders believes that “tens of thousands of people in China” are being denied entry into the country. “Many of these travel bans are illegal and violate the principle of freedom of movement,” the group said.
In 2021, activist Guo Feixiong, already at the airport, was prevented from leaving China to visit his wife, Zhang Qing, who was hospitalized in the United States with cancer, “for reasons of national security,” the NGO said .
In September, Safeguard Defenders had also accused China of having 54 clandestine police stations abroad, including three in Portugal (Lisbon, Porto and Madeira).
The NGO said these centers are used to pressure and threaten dissidents, control refugees from China and seek their return to that country.
At the time, China acknowledged that it has “police stations on duty” abroad and denied engaging in “police activities”.
At the end of October, the Attorney General’s Office assured that investigations were underway by the Central Investigation and Criminal Prosecution Department in the case of the alleged illegal operation of “Chinese police stations” in Portugal.
Source: DN
