17 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The US federal police, the FBI, have arrested two suspected Chinese agents and federal charges have been filed against 34 Chinese police officers for harassing and attempting to silence anti-government Chinese citizens in the United States.
These Chinese officials would be operating from the so-called Chinese secret police stations, one of which was in New York City, the US television network has reported.
Two of these Chinese agents were arrested on Monday in New York’s Chinatown, Chinatown, and will appear in the next few hours before a federal court, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, John Marzulli, has reported.
The defendants operated from an “unreported police station” located in Manhattan that has been closed following the execution of a search warrant in the fall, Marzulli explained.
The Department of Justice has announced the filing of charges against a total of 34 Chinese National Police officers for harassment of Chinese citizens who had expressed criticism of the Chinese government. It is believed that the 34 defendants live in China and therefore have not been arrested, the Department of Justice has qualified.
They were part of a Chinese government program called Special Project 912 Working Group that sought to influence the perception of China in world public opinion.
Specifically, they used social media to post pro-Beijing views and to attack “perceived adversaries” around the world such as US and Chinese pro-democracy activists, according to Justice.
The agents would report to the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and created and maintained accounts posing as US citizens to post propaganda related to US foreign policy, human rights in Hong Kong, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, COVID -19 or the protests against racism after the murder of George Floyd, the Prosecutor’s Office has highlighted.
In addition, videos and articles have been published against Chinese pro-democracy activists living in the United States, some of them with explicit death threats, the Justice Department has revealed. They also threatened and intimidated people not to attend pro-democracy protests on US soil.
