Dozens protest outside Chinese police station in New York over alleged spying

Dozens of demonstrators protested outside Chinatown, which houses a foreign police station accused of harassing and spying on Chinese citizens in the city.

More than 60 protesters gathered Saturday morning outside 107 East Broadway, where the nonprofit ChangLe Association Inc owns and operates a “service station” above a noodle shop where security experts say operatives monitor dissidents in the Chinese community.

“This is a very serious issue in the Chinese community,” said Tony Tsai, one of the protesters. Tsai is a democratic activist who was imprisoned twice by the Chinese Communist Party in China for advocating free speech. He immigrated to the US in 2000, he told The Post.

“The CCP is brutally coercing the Chinese community and has great influence over them here in the state through American and Asian American politicians,” he said. “I am very concerned, but I want to support community leaders who are honest and openly oppose what the CCP is doing.”

Jing Zhang, founder and executive director of Women’s Rights in China, echoed the sentiment as she joined protesters outside the Lower Manhattan building. “People should support each other,” she said. “We all came here to be free.”

The Manhattan station is part of a network of more than 100 such law enforcement agencies set up around the world by the People’s Republic of China, ostensibly to help Chinese citizens renew their state-issued ID cards and driver’s licenses.

But the stations have more “sinister” purposes, such as spying on the Chinese diaspora for the Chinese Communist Party, according to a recent whistleblower report.

“Openly referred to as Overseas Police Stations… they contribute to the “strong suppression of all kinds of illegal and criminal activities involving overseas Chinese,” says a September report by Safeguard Defenders, a Madrid-based human rights group that documents Chinese crackdowns. worldwide.

According to the report, the stations also engage in “intimidation, harassment, detention or imprisonment” to spy on dissidents and bring migrants back to China.

“We Chinese are very angry at the local government for its appeasement policy,” said Kiam Jiu, who attended the protest with his daughter Zhao Yue Auiam. “They allow the CCP to suppress freedom and human rights activities. We want the local government to implement a policy of strong pressure on the CCP agents.”

Last year, New York City Mayor Eric Adams was the guest of honor at a gala dinner sponsored by the charity that runs the Chinatown police station, The Post reported.

“CCP agents are everywhere,” said Ziyun Huang, who also participated in Saturday’s protest. “When all human rights groups have protests and demonstrations, the CCP will come and disturb people.

“The CCP has a huge impact on the average Chinese American,” Huang continued. “The party is always on their mind. Everything they do is psychological. The CCP is like the weather for the Chinese—they are always in the background.”