“They want me back in China” – Northern Times

Multiple fake bomb threats originating from China have been made across Europe in the past year, according to a Hague police spokesperson. Police have yet to disclose who was responsible or which hotels received such threats. Police declined to provide additional details about the investigation so far.

threatening message

Wang Jingyu was one of those who reported being targeted by such bomb threats. Some of the fake bomb threats were made in his name.

He fled China in 2019 after expressing support for pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong. After traveling through several different countries, the king eventually applied for asylum in Holland.Since he ran away, he says it’s been regular harassed by Chinese authorities. “If I post something on Twitter, 20 minutes later the police show up at my house in China,” Wang previously said. De VolkskrantThe message from the Chinese police is always the same. If he does not return to China, his parents will meet an unfortunate end.

In early October 2022, Jingyu received a threatening message via the chat app Telegram the day after he conducted the interview. RTL News About illegal Chinese Police station in Holland. A message addressed to the king urged him to come to Amsterdam Central Station. If he doesn’t, the message said a bomb threat will be made against the Chinese embassy in his name.

“Then hotel bookings started coming in under my name. A few hours later, the Chinese embassy called the police and said I had threatened them with a bomb,” he says. According to reports Jingyu has filed with the police, Jingyu has booked hotel rooms, made bomb threats at his hotels in the Netherlands and Belgium, and even used his name in other countries and on reservations. is said to have been used.

Jingyu recently tweeted that Turkey’s General Security Directorate, Germany’s Federal Criminal Police, and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation are also investigating the fake bomb threat. Turkish officials declined to comment, saying neither German police nor her FBI could confirm or deny specific investigations or procedures.

Recent Posts@Suyuton Endless disdain and blasphemy, we are in many countries with the threat of an explosion.@FBI Domi Sono National Police @EmniyetGM Deguo Criminal Investigation Bureau@bka 已经intervention This plan and the Liaison National Police joint investigation!

The communist gang violence this time, this is the main course of international terror, and there is a mandatory method to activate it! pic.twitter.com/ROpIwZmOrX

— Wang Jingyu WANG JINGYU (@WANGJINGYU2001) February 12, 2023

translation:

“The Dutch National Police have filed a lawsuit against me and @Suyutong for bomb threats made in our name in several countries. I am involved in the case and am seeking contact with the Dutch National Police for a joint investigation!”

Chinese authorities

In November, the Hague police contacted a Chinese PhD candidate in Groningen. “They wanted to know if I knew anything about the bomb threats and if I had been in contact with Wang Jingyu. They also asked if I had booked a hotel room. But I didn’t know anything about it, nothing was charged to my credit card, and I had very little money in my account so it wouldn’t have been possible anyway,” said Anonymous. says a woman who wants

A PhD candidate from Groningen has been the subject of interest from the Chinese authorities, but not because of protests or political activism. Her investigation began years after she filed reports with Dutch and Chinese police that she had been sexually assaulted in Groningen by a Chinese professor.

The instructor turned out to be a member of the Ministry of Justice of Jiangsu Province, China. This is evidenced by a screenshot of the announcement on the ministry’s website. Communist Party. “Right after he raped me, he started saying he knew a lot of important people and that bomb threats were known to happen,” she says.

Her call history has since shown her to have been called from an unknown number, and when she answers, no one is speaking on the other end. Chinese police also visited her parents in China and asked about her daughter’s social media accounts. One investigator left her parents a note with the words “Facebook” and “Twitter” translated into Mandarin, along with a phone number where her parents could contact the police. She said the parents of another Chinese friend of hers in Groningen were also interviewed by the police, claiming her Telegram account was hacked. “I am afraid that if I go back to China, I will definitely be arrested and killed,” she said.

tactics

They believe the bomb threats and hotel bookings are tactics by the Chinese authorities to silence them and undermine their trust. Such tactics could be used as grounds leading to the rejection of asylum applications and deportation to China.

“I think the Chinese Communist Party. They always make these Threat typeThey want me to go back to China. That’s why,” says Wang. “This is what they do. I know it’s pointless, but they prosecute all those who oppose the Chinese Communist Party.”

The King isn’t the only target for these fake bomb threats and hotel bookings. Sou Tong, Chinese journalists in Germany have fallen victim to similar tactics. She fled China in 2010 after being placed under house arrest for distributing her banned book. “The Communist Party has booked hotels in my name all over the world and put bomb threats on them,” she says. murmured Early February.

Shameless East-West creeping, sloppy work, now I need to kill myself and the whole family, and then I’ll fix it again and again! Are we harmed? pic.twitter.com/3dodyuoUlH

— Suyuton 🎗️ (@Suyuton) November 30, 2022

translation:

“They sent me a message today saying they want to kill me and my whole family! Say! Do you think I’m scared?”

Yutong’s name was also used to book a hotel room in Hong Kong, after which a bomb threat was made. made, again, in the name of Wang Jingyu. “I have reported to the police. Death threats and intimidation by the Communist Party have taken on a new dimension,” the journalist tweeted. Yutong declined to comment further on the story, citing ongoing investigations in Germany.

Australian activist

This approach is not limited to Chinese. bomb threat At the Chinese Embassy in London after protesting China’s human rights abuses. “Last year, I was arrested during a peaceful protest in London. The Chinese Embassy falsely claimed that I had used his ProtonMail to make bomb threats and was arrested as a terrorist suspect,” Pavlou murmured.

The activist said the bomb threat was sent using a fake email address with his name on it. “They were clearly trying to trick me. Nothing they do threatens me. These are petty Mafia-style tactics,” Pavlou previously said. sky newsBritish police have exonerated Pavlow in the case.

publicity campaign

These individuals were not previously known to be related to each other. But what they have in common is that they have all been subject to intense scrutiny by Chinese authorities and have been threatened with fake bombs tied to their names in some way.

“I don’t know these specific cases, but the tactics don’t surprise me,” says Ardi Bouwers, a Sinologist and director of the consultancy China Circle. According to Bowers, the ultimate goal of intimidation is to promote certain narratives about China and its place in the world and to suppress narratives that say otherwise.

“It’s part of a big propaganda campaign,” she says. “Part of it is focused on the international community, but more importantly, it is really focused on the Chinese people. is also much more important, which means that Chinese people in China should not be distracted by other stories.”

Chinese authorities are not the only ones devoted to propaganda campaigns. Chinese citizens around the world have been known to step in if someone says something that contradicts China’s official narrative, says Bouwers.

“And it happens in all sorts of ways, not just on Chinese social media. It happens on Twitter, we see it on LinkedIn. It is also standard procedure to put pressure on family members who are perceived as critics. Bowers says, “You hear that all the time.”

Bowers said it was important for police to investigate these instances of intimidation. “The moment someone in the Netherlands is targeted with this type of coercive tactic, it is a punishable crime and must be held accountable.”

The Chinese Embassy in the Netherlands did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.

This survey was conducted with Tracy White Marcello Philibeck in collaboration with Peter Kaiser pointer

Fix: An earlier version of this story said the fake bomb threat could be used to undermine the king’s asylum request.Wang was granted asylum in the Netherlands in 2022. submitted a document. This has been corrected in the text.