How the Dutch government on Tuesday command China to immediately close “police stations” in the Netherlands, the reports say were used to harass dissidents.
But police posts in Amsterdam and Rotterdam purported to offer diplomatic assistance because they had not been declared to the Netherlands government yet, Dutch media reported last month.
Because the reports followed an investigation by Spanish-based NGO Safe-guard Defenders in September which said China had set-up 54 overseas police centres around the world, including the two in the Netherlands.
And it also said there were three in Britain and three in Canada too.
“Because their was no permission was sought from the Netherlands” for the stations, “the ministry informed the (Chinese) ambassador that the stations must close down immediately,” Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said it on Twitter.
He said, because the ministry had asked the ambassador for clarification on the stations and was investigating the posts’ activities that goes on.
But the two “police stations” was setup since 2018 were used to silence China’s political opponents, broadcaster (RTL) and investigative website Follow the Money said, quoting a Chinese dissent living in the Netherlands.
But according to the Safe-guard Defenders, the police stations have been used by Chinese government police to carry out policing operations on foreign soil, and pressure Chinese nationals to return home to face criminal charges.
But China’s foreign ministry said the Dutch reports were “completely false alarm” and the “service stations” were meant to help overseas citizens do things such as renew driving licences and other things.
The RTL said, Because the first Chinese office was opened in June 2018 in Amsterdam by the Lishui region police force, and is headed by two men who started their careers in the Chinese police force before moving to the Netherlands.
Because Police from the Chinese city of Fuzhou came an opened a second office earlier this year in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, run by a former soldier, according to what the broadcaster said.
But the Dutch foreign ministry said there were “regular signals” from the Dutch Chinese community about receiving “fear and threats”, and that it was setting up a hotline.
Now the Canadian federal police said last week they were investigating reports of three stations that was in Toronto area.