Chinese embassy slams Swedish newspaper for blasting press freedom

The Chinese Embassy in Sweden, in a rare move, slammed a Swedish media outlet for publishing an “untrue” story about China and urged them to also publish the embassy’s response to allow readers “to hear a different voice.”

The Swedish newspaper Expressen published an article on June 19 criticizing China’s “suppression of the freedom of press” by citing multiple cases, including the experience of Gui Minhai, a Hong Kong-based book publisher of Swedish citizenship, to prove that China is “completely dark.”

The content of the article is “seriously inconsistent with the facts and full of bias and lies, which is totally unacceptable,” said a notice released by the embassy on July 3.

Gui surrendered to Chinese police after 11 years on the run for allegedly killing a college student while driving drunk in 2003.

Originally from Ningbo in East China’s Zhejiang Province, Gui obtained Swedish citizenship in 1996.

The article called the arrest of Gui a “kidnapping.”

“The Swedish media reported this case quite irresponsibly. How can they face the young college girl killed by him?” the embassy said in the letter to the newspaper.

Jojje Olsson, a 35-year-old journalist mentioned in the article who was “denied a visa to China” several times “without a reason,” fraudulently obtained a Chinese visa, the embassy said.

Olsson then applied for and obtained a Chinese visa for travel and study but engaged in untruthful news reporting activities in China, which violated Chinese law, the embassy noted.

The letter also cited other items in the newspaper’s article, including the illegal organization named Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China.