US arrests two over Chinese ‘police station’ in New York
US authorities arrested two men Monday for allegedly setting up a Chinese "police station" in New York and charged dozens of Chinese security officials over a campaign to monitor and harass US-based dissidents.
The arrests of Harry Lu Jianwang, 61, and Chen Jinping, 59, are the first anywhere over a suspected campaign by China to establish surreptitious police posts in countries around the world, said Breon Peace, the top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn.
The two men set up the office in Manhattan's Chinatown last year at the behest of the Fuzhou branch of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), China's national police force, ostensibly to offer services like Chinese driver's license renewal, according to Peace.
But in fact their main job was to help track down and harass fugitive dissidents from the People's Republic of China (PRC), US officials said.
"The MPS established a concrete outpost, an offthe-books police station right here in New York City, to monitor and intimidate dissidents and other critics of the PRC within one of the United States' most vibrant diaspora communities," said David Newman, the Justice Department's principal deputy assistant attorney general for national security.
- Harassing dissidents -
Canada and several European governments have cracked down on similar "police stations."
Last year the Spain-based human rights group Safeguard Defenders first revealed the existence of such outposts around the world.
They often operate with little or no indication they are there – though US officials said the Manhattan office had been visited by officials from the Chinese consulate in New York.