Australian intelligence agents have questioned two Chinese defectors over claims that Beijing operates a network of 1,000 spies across Australia, as a third dissident was expected to go public with similar charges yesterday, the Australian newspaper reported.
Former diplomat Chen Yonglin (
Chen abandoned his post as first secretary at the Chinese consulate-general in Sydney last month while Hao defected in February.
Both men are seeking to be allowed to stay in Australia, claiming their lives would be in danger if forced to return home.
A third defector, Yuan Hongbing (袁紅兵), a writer and former law professor at Beijing University who arrived in Australia last year, was expected to make a public statement yesterday on his own claim for protection.
APPEAL FOR PROTECTION
Yuan was imprisoned for six months in 1994 for his work in support of democracy, the Australian said, and left China on a tour to Australia last year, where he lodged an application for protection.
He is expected to question why it has taken the Australian government almost a year to make a decision in his case.
The government has already been criticized by the opposition and rights groups over its handling of Chen's case, amid concerns that it was being influenced by Australia's growing trade relationship with China.
Chen's initial plea for political asylum was rebuffed, but Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said Monday his application for a protection visa to allow him and his family to stay in the country was being treated as a priority.
Chen says he fears persecution if he is returned to Beijing because of the assistance he has given to Chinese dissidents, including members of the Falun Gong meditation group that is banned in China, in Australia.
Chen, who is living in hiding, on Monday called on other Chinese to defect.
"My conscience pushed me to leave the Chinese communist regime and free myself from the evil control of the Chinese Communist Party," Chen wrote in a letter which was read out at a rally in Sydney.
`WALK OUT OF THE SHADOWS'
"Now it's the time to smash and break the chains holding your body and soul and embrace a life of freedom, as I did walking out of shadows into a new life, no matter how difficult it is," Chen wrote.
The Chinese government branded the Falun Gung an evil cult after 10,000 members surrounded the leadership's Beijing compound in a surprise dawn protest in 1999.
Fearing that the spiritual movement could present an organized challenge to its authority, the Communist Party has cracked down on Falun Gong over the past few years.
Greens party chief Bob Brown, who has helped Chen formally apply for political asylum, last week accused the Australian government of putting security at risk because ASIO had not yet contacted Chen.
China, which is Australia's third-largest trading partner with annual trade worth A$28.9 billion (US$22.7 billion), is in talks with Canberra on a free-trade deal and a separate pact to import Australian uranium.
Australia and China have said the diplomat's asylum bid would not harm relations.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
RSS