Protect Chinese tourists, Sweden urged

CHINA has called on Sweden to guarantee the safety and legitimate rights of Chinese tourists, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said yesterday.

“In the early morning of September 2, three Chinese tourists, including two elderly, were brutally treated by local police on the outskirts of Stockholm,” Geng told a routine press briefing in Beijing.

“The Chinese Embassy in Sweden and Chinese Foreign Ministry have lodged representations with the Swedish side, calling on the Swedish side to conduct a thorough investigation, respond to the Chinese tourists’ reasonable appeal in a timely manner and inform the Chinese side as soon as possible.

“As of now, the Chinese side has neither received any update of the investigation from the Swedish side, nor any response from the Swedish police to the embassy’s demand for a faceto-face communication.”

“This is not in line with diplomatic and international common practices,” Geng said. “We urge the Swedish side to attach importance to the Chinese side’s concern and take concrete measures to guarantee Chinese tourists’ safety and legitimate rights.”

Swedish authorities, however, said yesterday that there was no police wrongdoing. Chief prosecutor Mats Ericsson called it an “ordinary police procedure,” according to the Aftonbladet newspaper, one of Sweden’s largest.

Earlier reports said police forcibly ejected a Chinese man surnamed Zeng and his parents from a hotel in Stockholm early on September 2 after they arrived a day before their booking and were asked to leave.

Widely shared video footage shows two police officers, at one point, carrying the father out of the door by his arms and legs.

The family claims police left them in the cold at a cemetery several kilometers away from the hotel.