Posted on 06/11/2005 9:20:22 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Thu Jun 9, 7:33 PM ET
SYDNEY (AFP) - A third Chinese official has defected in Australia and already been granted refugee status after revealing he witnessed a dissident being tortured to death in China, his lawyer said.
The unnamed official was a senior officer in a branch of the Chinese security service known as "610" and defected after witnessing repeated human rights abuses by other agents, lawyer Bernard Collaery said on ABC television late Thursday.
Collaery, a prominent lawyer and former attorney-general of the Australian Capital Territory, said the official's assertions backed up claims made earlier this week by a Chinese diplomat seeking asylum in Australia and another Chinese security agent whose defection in February has just come to light.
The two other officials, Chen Yonglin from China's consulate in Sydney, and policeman Hao Fengjun, have said China has some 1,000 spies and informants in Australia, many of them monitoring the activities of dissident movements like the Falungong meditation group.
Both men are seeking political asylum, claiming their lives would be in danger if forced to return home.
The defections have posed a delicate problem for the government of Prime Minister John Howard, which is striving to expand political and trade ties with China.
After sending out mixed signals on Chen's bid for asylum, Health Minister Tony Abbott, said Thursday the fugitive diplomat would not be sent home.
"Mr. Chen is in Australia, he is being dealt with in accordance with the ordinary process of Australian immigration law, and he is at no risk of being sent back to China," said Abbott, one of Howard's closest aides.
China has ridiculed claims by Chen and Hao that it was involved in widespread spying in Australia, both to obtain military and industrial secrets and to monitor expatriate Chinese dissidents.
"They have on various occasions expressed views and used words which we believe are only fabrications and lies," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said on Thursday in Beijing.
But Collaery told ABC's Lateline program the third defector's accounts of activities by China's "610" bureau and notably its mistreatment of Falungong practitioners confirmed the stories of Chen and Hao.
"He took exception to a wide-spread torture of practitioners within his police district by this insidious gestapo apparatus that has been grafted on to the state's security processes in and throughout China," Collaery said.
Collaery says the final straw for the man came when he was unable to prevent the death of a man in custody.
"He hears the beating in his police station. He intervenes. He's told to go away. He goes upstairs to his office," Collaery said.
"His conscience stricken, he comes back downstairs and says: 'This must stop'. And then sees this naked man with his head in a chair, his legs poking out, clearly deceased, and he's horrified by it. That's the last straw."
Collaery would not identify the man for fear that harm would come to relatives still living in China. He also did not say when the man came to Australia.
But he said the safe house where the man had been hiding was ransacked, presumably by Chinese agents, and that this supports claims by Hao and Chen that China maintains a network of spies in Australia.
"About two months after we placed him in hiding, while he was out, his entire premises were ransacked criminally," he said.
There was no immediate reaction from Australian officials on Collaery's claims.
It is my impression that Falun Gong is running some kind of underground railroad for ferreting people out of China.
Falun Gong really grew into the deeply entrenched underground secret organization, which Chinese regime made all-out efforts to nip at the bud. The regime's efforts seem to have backfired. Jiang Zemin left a really messy legacy to Hu Jintao. Now Jiang could sit back and blame it all on Hu.
Widely derided as Wang-ba-dan(moron, a**hole) among Chinese as his clownish behaviors in public, which most Chinese find highly embarassing(apparently it was not just outsiders who noticed Jiang's stupid antics: picking his nose in public, yawning like a true moron during a party conference, or singing 'O Sole Mio' during a summit press conference), he now ends up being responsible for creating a cancer, known as Falun Gong problem, for Chinese regime. This organiation is now into brining together all anti-government activities. It looks their organization won't go away anytime soon, and they seem to have some long-term strategy.
Ping!
A third Chinese official has defected in Australia and already been granted refugee status after revealing he witnessed a dissident being tortured to death in China, his lawyer said.So which of the three would you wager is the mole planted by the ChiComms to disinform and discredit the other two?
How many in the U.S., South, and Central America?
Could someone please post the pictures of the "criminals" getting their brains blown out by the Chinese gestapo? Maybe these criminals were Falun Gong practitioners picked up in Australia. I know the China first Freepers just love those pictures and will come running to the aid of the Motherland (China not the U.S.)
Disgusting the way Western politicians pussyfoot around Chinese atrocities for the sake of cheap trinkets made with slave labor. The US should set an example and recognize Taiwan as the legitimate government of China.
In case of Australia, it is about exporting iron ore, uranium ore and beef, not so much about importing cheap trinkets.
Where were those Aussies who used to came out in tens of thousands to stage nude demonstrations against U.S. "imperial aggression" on Iraq? Why do they not stage another nude demonstration against their government? Is it simply because it is winter there now? Chinese defectors are serving American Imperialists, so they are no longer regarded as oppressed victim, but collaborating with oppressors.:-)
<< "1000 spies and agents in australia"
How many in the U.S., South, and Central America >>
At least scores and more likely hundreds of thousands.
And don't forget Canada.
It is now effectively owned operated and controlled by the Peking-based pack of hesperophobically-psychopathological predators that so grandiosely calls itslf, "china."
People are not protesting in Australia, mostly because people believe these men will be allowed to stay. A senior Cabinet member has already said publically that the first man will not be sent back to China against his will.
To a lot of us, these 'Howard government is scared of China' is simply spin by the governments opponents. Australia doesn't get defectors very often - there aren't streamlined procedures to deal with such cases, so it's taken some time to work out what the best way to handle this is - this doesn't mean that the men aren't going to be allowed to stay.
If people thought there was any real likelihood they'd be sent back against their will, people might actually protest.
But we have a clear statement on this issue from one of the Government's senior members.
I'm not saying the government has handled this well, by the way - they haven't. Initially it looks like they just hoped Chen would change his mind, and when he didn't, they didn't seem to know how to handle it.
But nobody here really thinks he's likely to be sent back - so nobody is protesting about him or ther others.
I'm going to post an article about this in a minute.
The article I just mentioned.
"And don't forget Canada"
Interesting comment. My counter parts in Canada told me they were told to ignore the Chinese Heroin and focus on "Mexican Tar".
This was in Vancouver, B.C.
In the second half of my comments above, my focus was the Australian left. Since they are mostly against Howard and his government bumbled in this human right issue, they should have been the first ones to be upset over this development.
OHH seem there is crack in Great Wall of China hey Tiger do you think regime would still be around when 2008 Olympics happen
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