Pohan Wu, a Taiwanese exchange student in Paris, stood behind barricades on Boulevard Saint-Germain, his eyes trained on the road where Chinese President Xi Jinping’s motorcade would soon pass. It was March 26, 2019, and Xi was in the French capital to discuss trade with European leaders.
Armed with a teal cloth sign that read, “I am Taiwanese. I stand for Taiwan’s independence,” Wu planned to protest Beijing’s policy that asserts Taiwan is part of China. He waited patiently until he saw the president’s custom Hongqi, a luxury Chinese car, and unfolded his banner. Within seconds, a French military officer grabbed Wu and stripped him of the sign. In a video he posted online, Wu can be heard shouting “Taiwan independence” in Chinese as the officer attempts to subdue him.
“They didn’t give me any warning,” Wu told the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. “They just tried to rip off my flag.”
French police held Wu in a van while Xi’s motorcade passed, he said, releasing him after more than an hour. According to Wu, officers told him that people in France can normally protest freely but they had been given orders from “high-level officials” to prevent any demonstrations that day.
France’s Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the French Gendarmerie, a branch of the armed forces, did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the incident.
It was not the only time a policing body outside China’s borders suppressed voices critical of the Chinese Communist Party, according to a new global analysis by ICIJ. During at least seven of Xi’s 31 international trips between 2019 and 2024, local law enforcement infringed on dozens of protesters’ rights in order to shield the Chinese president from dissent, detaining or arresting activists, often for spurious reasons. Across the seven visits, these activists were silenced for reasons including requesting permission to protest, practicing a spiritual movement banned in China or, like Wu, peacefully holding a sign on a city street. Experts characterized the incidents described to ICIJ as police overreach.
The arrests and detentions give a window into how China wields its extensive political and economic power to pressure foreign governments and institutions to bend to its will.
ICIJ and its media partners collected protest-related photos, videos, police records and court filings, and interviewed more than a dozen activists who were detained during Xi’s trips. Almost all said they were subjected to extreme police responses, fabricated charges or preventive detentions. In several cases, law enforcement detained or arrested protesters after peaceful actions: for example, holding up a bag marked with the words “Free Tibet” and marching with a sign calling on Xi to “put an end to dictatorship.” Detentions identified by ICIJ ranged from one hour in a police van to more than two months in an immigration prison. In four countries, ICIJ found, police detained activists before they had a chance to protest.
All seven Xi visits included incidents, detailed below, in which police violated protesters’ rights to freedom of assembly and expression under international standards. And there were likely many unreported incidents, said Maya Wang, the associate China director at Human Rights Watch. “Often the Chinese government themselves would be threatening people not to protest before you even see them in the news,” she said.
Wang and others warned that the arrests also deter people from protesting. “What the Chinese government wants is that when they visit these governments, nobody ever actually says anything,” she said.
These findings are part of China Targets, a cross-border investigation based on interviews with more than 100 targets of China’s transnational repression in 23 countries, as well as secret video and audio recordings of police interrogations and internal Chinese government documents that together lay out China’s playbook for suppressing dissent worldwide.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the U.S., told ICIJ in a statement that “the notion of ‘transnational repression’ is a groundless accusation, fabricated by a handful of countries and organizations to slander China.”
“When it comes to international judicial cooperation, the Chinese government strictly abides by international law and the sovereignty of other countries,” he said.
The Chinese Embassy in France echoed those comments in a separate statement, labeling the investigation’s findings “fabricated lies,” adding that China “has always been committed to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries.” Aside from France, Chinese embassies in countries where the detention incidents occurred did not respond to ICIJ and its partners’ requests for comment.
Since 2013, Xi has turned national security into a linchpin of his regime, cracking down on all forms of political dissent that “subvert state power.” During Xi’s foreign travels, his supporters, Chinese security officials and embassy-sponsored groups regularly prevent displays of resistance by blocking, drowning out, intimidating or even assaulting dissidents. Those efforts primarily target pro-democracy activists from mainland China and Hong Kong; Tibetan and Taiwanese independence advocates; practitioners of the anti-communist Falun Gong spiritual movement; and Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim Turkic ethnic group.
But the regime doesn’t act alone. In the cases ICIJ analyzed, the push to silence opponents of the Chinese Communist Party involved local law enforcement in host countries. International law enforcement collaboration is common, but China has exploited such partnerships to expand its global reach. When Xi visited Nepal in 2019, Chinese security had a direct role in the surveillance and detention of dissidents, a former senior Nepali police officer told ICIJ partner Online Khabar.
“If anybody actually said, ‘I’m going to kill Xi Jinping right this moment on this route,’ yes, the police should be doing something about that, no question,” Wang said. “But if somebody’s just saying ‘Free Tibet’ or ‘Free Uyghurs,’ standing on the side of the road, no way it would meet that kind of criteria for a restriction of people’s peaceful right to express themselves.”
It is alarming that fundamental rights like freedom to peacefully protest or freedom of speech is being threatened or sacrificed on the altar of economic gain.
— Audrye Wong, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California
The incidents occurred in both democratic and undemocratic countries that are party to the United Nations’ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty requiring governments to respect certain human rights, including freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly. Most of the countries also have those rights enshrined in their constitutions.
Despite those commitments, some countries are willing to put people’s rights “on the back burner” to foster good relations with China, according to Audrye Wong, an assistant professor of political science and international relations at the University of Southern California and a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy think tank. “It is alarming that fundamental rights like freedom to peacefully protest or freedom of speech is being threatened or sacrificed on the altar of economic gain,” she said.
Yaqiu Wang, a former China researcher for human rights advocacy group Freedom House, said China’s ability to enlist other governments into its global repression campaign is “unmatched” — as evidenced by the detentions of critics before they had a chance to protest. “That shows those governments are doing the bidding of the Chinese government,” she said.
Click or scroll to read each case.
Scroll to read each case.
France
2019
Xi Jinping’s first international trip of 2019 included a red-carpet welcome ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe, a state dinner at the Elysee Palace and a private meal with President Emmanuel Macron on the French Riviera — where Macron, Xi and their wives were served a menu of asparagus, crab and veal crafted by a chef from a three-star Michelin restaurant, according to French newspaper Le Figaro.
Pohan Wu, then an exchange student at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (known as Sciences Po), wanted to take advantage of the president’s visit to publicly reject Beijing’s view that Taiwan and China should be united under the “one country, two systems” framework.
Although he knew there could be consequences for demonstrating, Wu was shocked by how aggressively French authorities responded when he unfolded his banner. “Every week there’s a huge protest, so I thought this should be quite normal in their country,” he said.
Michael Hamilton, a legal adviser to Amnesty International on the right to protest, told ICIJ that generally the act of carrying a banner doesn’t warrant police intervention.
“The right to freedom of expression and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly include the right to offend, shock and disturb, so any kind of preemptive restriction merely on the basis of the content and the embarrassment that it might cause to a visiting head of state is very unlikely to pass a test of necessity and proportionality,” Hamilton said.
When police first stopped him, Wu said, they told him that he should have submitted an application to protest in advance because his sign — which included phrases in both English and Chinese — didn’t have any French writing. Then, they confiscated Wu’s sign and forced him into a police van, where he was held for more than an hour, he said.
“When I was detained in a police van, they told me that normally, people can protest freely,” he wrote on Facebook the following day. “However today, instructions from high-level officials had already been given that no demonstrations in any form were allowed during this day.” ICIJ could not identify which high-level officials allegedly gave the orders.
According to Wu, when police released him from the van they told him they had been confirming his identity. But he didn’t buy it. “They released me just because the [presidential] fleet was already gone,” he said, “and they already made sure I cannot do another protest.
A French diplomatic source would not comment on Wu’s case but said France’s international partners were expected to “fully respect French law in French territory.”
“The Chinese authorities are aware of our position,” the source said. “France is doing everything in its power to prevent foreign interference and protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals in its territory.”
Since the incident, Wu has taken additional precautions to protect himself, including limiting overseas travel, in case word of his activism has reached Chinese authorities.
“I cannot go to Hong Kong. I cannot go to China. I cannot transfer in any city in Hong Kong or in China,” he said. “Too much risk.”
India
2019
A few months after Xi Jinping’s European trip, the Chinese president was set to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India, home to one of the world’s largest Tibetan diaspora communities. Xi’s itinerary included a stay in Chennai; a tour of Mahabalipuram, a historical beach town recognized as a UNESCO heritage site for its monuments and Hindu temples; and a classical Indian music and dance performance.
Before Xi’s plane even touched down, local authorities moved to prevent Tibetans from protesting in the area. Members of a Tibetan students’ association said police demanded they sign a letter, later circulated on social media, promising they would “not indulge in any unlawful activities which may [be] likely to commit breach of peace or disturb the public tranquility.” Police also arrested members of several Tibetan groups. Tibetan communities living in exile have long disputed China’s control of the region and criticized its mistreatment of Tibetans.
Tibetan poet and activist Tenzin Tsundue, who has been arrested for protesting 16 times across India and Tibet, arrived at Mahabalipuram a few days before Xi to plan his protest. After leaving the guesthouse where he was staying, Tsundue was stopped by police and taken to a police station. There, he said, an officer informed him that authorities had been following him for a month. He told ICIJ the police did not charge him but held him in a Chennai jail for 12 days — until Xi left the country.
“Based on his previous protests against China, we arrested him to prevent him from doing something similar next week,” a police inspector told the New Indian Express at the time.
Preventive detention is legal under India’s constitution and allows authorities to hold individuals who they believe might imminently commit a crime — often in the name of national security or public order. The practice came under scrutiny from India’s Supreme Court in 2023 in a case involving an alleged gold smuggler who challenged his detention.
“Preventive detention laws in India are a colonial legacy, and as such, are extremely powerful laws that have the ability to confer arbitrary power to the state,” two justices wrote in the decision. “Laws that have the ability to confer arbitrary powers to the state, must in all circumstances, be very critically examined, and must be used only in the rarest of rare cases.”
Hamilton, the legal adviser to Amnesty International, said preventive detention is often a “deprivation of liberty” and should be used as an “absolute measure of last resort.”
Tsundue was later joined in jail by a group of nine activists, who prosecutors alleged had been protesting “against the visit of the Chinese President and raising slogans,” causing “threat to the general public and transport.” But in court documents, the activists said the allegations were completely false. The group was arrested at a Tibetan university professor’s apartment, where they were staying. The professor, Tenzin Norbu, told ICIJ that while the activists had planned to protest, the actions police accused them of were fabricated. Authorities strip-searched Norbu and held him for eight days, he said. A judge later quashed the cases against the group, citing police failure to complete the investigation within the allotted year. Even so, the incident cost Norbu his job. He told ICIJ a police officer at the station later revealed that the orders to “round up” the Tibetans came from India’s prime minister. The prime minister’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Norbu, who now lives in the United Kingdom, said he would think twice before traveling back to India.
“I lost confidence in the state,” he said. “For the first time, I realized how vulnerable the Tibetans are, how lonely the Tibetan struggle is, that we are at the mercy of the state.”
Local authorities gave another activist a similar reception. Gonpo Dhundup, president of the Tibetan Youth Congress, a nongovernmental organization that advocates for Tibetan independence, arrived in Chennai the morning of Oct. 11, 2019, the day Xi was due there, prepared to lead a demonstration.
He and fellow activists had avoided preventive detention by traveling at night on foot, by train and by car from Bangalore, a city six hours away. They eventually reached the ITC Grand Chola Hotel, where Xi would be staying. Police barricades were already set up, Dhundup said, and when security officials asked their identity, Dhundup told them they were Chinese students there to welcome Xi. He waited until the group was closer to the hotel’s gate to unfurl a Tibetan flag.
Police pounced. In a video posted on Facebook by the Tibetan Youth Congress, at least four police officers can be seen pulling Dhundup out of the crowd and into a rickshaw. At least 11 other Tibetan activists were arrested with him, he told ICIJ. They were detained in the central jail for three days, where Dhundup was “manhandled,” he said. They were held with no access to their phones and too few mattresses to sleep on, he added.
In total, at least 50 Tibetans were arrested immediately before and during the visit, Radio Free Asia reported.
Police in the Tamil Nadu state did not respond to requests for comment.
Nepal
2019
After his stopover in India, Xi Jinping became the first Chinese president in two decades to visit Nepal. He was determined to sign an extradition treaty that could threaten the safety of thousands of Tibetans living in the country.
To prepare for Xi’s visit, 45 Nepali officials attended an 11-day VIP security training program in China, ICIJ partner Online Khabar reported. A team of Chinese officials also conducted a training session for Nepal’s leading political party on “Xi Jinping Thought” — the credo of the Chinese Communist Party.
A former senior officer with the Nepal Police told Online Khabar that the number of training opportunities the Chinese government provided in Beijing was “beyond words.”
“Looking back, it seems that the Chinese government had done this as part of the preparations for their president’s visit,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Nepal Police, Deputy Inspector General Dinesh Acharya, confirmed to Online Khabar that police officers “regularly” attend training programs in China and that the timing of these programs “may have coincided with the visit of the Chinese President.”
Balaram Poudel, then a member of a Nepali human rights organization, hoped to use Xi’s trip to Nepal to call on China to reduce its carbon emissions, commit to nuclear disarmament and honor the sovereignty of a disputed area in the Himalayan region. Two days before Xi’s arrival, Poudel delivered a letter to a senior administrator in Kathmandu, stating his intentions to protest outside the Chinese Embassy.
As Poudel awaited approval, he told Online Khabar, “the atmosphere started to change.”
“Up to 10 police officers gathered near where I was sitting,” he said. “The number of officers suddenly and unexpectedly surged, and even those already present became more alert. It felt strange to me.”
The administrator then called Poudel into his office, where he was meeting with the police chief and members of the Nepali army, and told him he was not permitted to protest against the Chinese president, according to Poudel.
“I didn’t say that I wouldn’t back down from my stance, but I insisted that if they provided an official letter stating that protests were not allowed, I would withdraw,” Poudel said. “However, [the administrator] said that issuing such a letter was not possible.”
Following the disagreement, the police chief “snatched my mobile phone and arrested me on the spot,” Poudel said.
The police report, however, describes Poudel as the aggressor. “He was holding a paper in his right hand related to the protest and had gathered women, children, and the general public, causing disturbance in a public space while protesting against His Excellency, President Xi Jinping of China,” the report states. “Based on intelligence information, when the police arrived at the scene and questioned him, he allegedly used obscene language against the on-duty police personnel and obstructed their work, engaging in disorderly conduct in a public space.”
Poudel was detained for seven days under what he labeled fabricated charges. He described being handcuffed in a cell alongside drug traffickers.
“The charge sheet against me falsely stated that I had misbehaved with the police,” Poudel said. “Why would I misbehave with the police? If that were my intention, I wouldn’t have gone to submit a formal letter in the first place.”
In response to a records request from Online Khabar, the District Administration Office in Kathmandu dismissed Poudel’s claims.
The district court acquitted Poudel more than a year after the incident due to a lack of “reliable evidence,” court documents show.
His arrest was just one of dozens during Xi’s high-stakes trip, which ultimately did not result in the signing of the extradition agreement. According to the former Nepali police officer interviewed by Online Khabar, Chinese security played a direct role in some of the arrests.
“In some cases, it was the Chinese security officers themselves who provided information about certain individuals,” he said. “Once those individuals were taken into custody, the Chinese security officers would screen them all. They wouldn’t personally visit or interrogate the detainees, but they would conduct their own assessments and decide whether the individuals should be released or held. In some cases, they instructed us not to release certain people, and for others, they even recommended legal action.”
Acharya, the Nepal Police spokesperson, said he was not aware of Poudel’s case. He told Online Khabar that during diplomatic visits “the focus is solely on ensuring the security of the visitor.”
“We are aware of the security challenges faced by our own people, just as their authorities understand the challenges their representatives may face,” he said. “So, some level of information sharing takes place accordingly, but this does not mean that all information is disclosed.”
Kazakhstan
2022
In the days leading up to Xi Jinping’s first international trip after the coronavirus pandemic, Kazakh authorities arrested at least two Uyghur activists and surveilled at least three others to prevent them from, according to one activist, going to Astana, the country’s capital, where Xi would be visiting.
The activists were among a devoted group of Uyghurs who had spent years protesting outside the Chinese Embassy in Astana and the consulate in southeastern Kazakhstan, demanding that China release their relatives who had gone missing in the far west Xinjiang region.
Uyghurs are a mostly Muslim ethnic group living primarily in northwest China. The Chinese government views Uyghurs’ cultural and religious identity as a threat to national unity and security. Uyghurs in Xinjiang are subject to mass internment in detention camps, though China denies the allegations and characterizes the camps as “vocational education and training centers.”
Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the U.S., wrote in a statement to ICIJ that “certain political forces and institutions continue to fabricate and disseminate disinformation about Xinjiang for the purpose of sowing discord and destabilizing the region.”
On Sept. 9, 2022, authorities in Almaty, a southeastern city and Kazakhstan’s largest, invited several Uyghur activists to the local administration building and told them that they would communicate their concerns to Chinese leadership during Xi’s visit, according to Baibolat Kunbolat, an activist whose brother is serving a 10-year prison sentence in Xinjiang.
He told ICIJ that officials said: “We will raise your issues at all meetings with the Chinese side. The negotiations are going on. We hope for a favorable outcome. And now the question is whether you have plans to visit the capital soon.”
Kunbolat responded that he and the other activists planned to go to Astana, roughly 800 miles to the north, to call Xi’s attention to their missing and imprisoned relatives. Then, on Sept. 10, four days before Xi’s arrival, Kunbolat was met by two officers while he was delivering a tray of homemade pastries to be sold at a local store. They instructed him to get into their car and took him to the police station. Fellow activist Akikat Kaliolla, a musician, was also arrested the same day at his recording studio. The arrests were first reported by ICIJ partner Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Kazakh Service.
Court documents related to Kunbolat’s arrest show he received a 15-day jail term for participating “in an illegal public event” without “permission or consent from the local executive body” for a protest he had organized near the Chinese Consulate in Almaty in August.
Kunbolat had been arrested previously, but he suspected there was more to it this time. He believed police had arrested him to prevent him from protesting in Astana.
While Kunbolat and Kaliolla served their sentences, plainclothes Kazakh officers sat in cars or stood outside the homes of three other activists, surveilling them around the clock while Xi visited to prevent them from going to the capital, Kunbolat said. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also reported that police stopped a bus the group had taken to a friend’s wedding and summoned them to the police station. Kunbolat said he believes this was an attempt to prevent the group from diverting to Astana.
A representative of the Almaty City Police Department did not answer questions sent by ICIJ.
When Xi touched down in Kazakhstan’s capital, he was greeted on a red carpet by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to the strains of a brass band and given a bouquet of roses.
China and oil-rich Kazakhstan share a long border. The two have been diplomatically linked since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and China and Chinese companies have become some of Kazakhstan’s largest investors, pumping billions of dollars into the country’s oil and gas sector. China helped to construct a cross-border pipeline, which Temur Umarov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, described as the “backbone” of the countries’ economic relationship.
Not all Kazakh citizens are happy with China’s influence, which has sometimes seeded unrest. While police tend to take a more neutral approach to protests against China that are “purely economic,” Umarov said, they have clamped down on protests concerning China’s domestic policies, including its treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. “The authorities mostly act in a much harsher way,” Umarov said.
Thailand
2022
When pro-democracy activist Li Nanfei heard Xi Jinping was coming to Bangkok for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in 2022, he tried to rally other Chinese refugees to participate in a protest against the regime, but they refused, Li told ICIJ. So he went alone and filmed a livestream in front of the U.N. building in Bangkok, calling for the end of Xi’s authoritarian rule. He then marched to the Chinese Embassy holding a sign that read, “His Majesty President Xi, put an end to dictatorship in China! Give the people back their freedom!”
Afterward, while waiting for the bus home, at least five Thai officers swarmed and arrested him, as initially reported by ICIJ partner Radio Free Asia. A police officer pulled out his phone and compared Li’s face to a screenshot of the livestream, Li recalled. The screenshot, which is included in Li’s arrest record, appears to have been sent to police by a Chinese speaker because the image includes Chinese characters.
Police then took Li to the Huai Khwang Police Station in Bangkok. He later found out he was being charged with illegally entering the country. Li was skeptical this was the real reason for his arrest.
Li had been arrested twice before for allegedly violating pandemic protocols, he told ICIJ. In both cases, he said, he produced a card that showed he was a U.N.-registered refugee. He received the status after fleeing China, where he was imprisoned for attempting to organize a political party. Thai authorities don’t recognize the U.N. status and still charge refugees with immigration crimes. But in Li’s earlier run-ins with Thai authorities, police released him the next day.
This time at the station, some of the officers commended him for his activism, he told ICIJ. But that congeniality evaporated when a man claiming to be a Chinese translator arrived and began giving the Thai police orders to check Li’s phone, according to Li. He said the translator reprimanded him for criticizing Xi.
“I can’t say with any evidence that this man was sent by the Chinese Embassy or the Chinese government, but his behavior speaks for itself,” Li said. “It’s not the Thai police who want to arrest you. It’s the Chinese authorities who want to arrest you.”
Police in Bangkok did not respond to requests for comment.
Li was later transferred to an immigration prison. On the way, he said, Thai police told him his friend was on the phone and ordered Li to pay a bribe if he wanted to speak with the friend. After paying, Li was surprised to find that the voice on the other end wasn’t his friend but someone claiming to be a messenger, he told ICIJ.
The voice said: “Be honest and return to China as soon as possible. That way, you can reunite with your family in your lifetime.” Li said he was told that returning would be better than “to die in a Thai prison.” He refused, and the anonymous caller hung up.
Conditions in the immigration prison were brutal, Li said. He estimated that 140 people shared one space. “In a room of 90 square meters, you can’t stretch your legs out straight, so you have to negotiate with the others,” he said. To combat hunger, he rolled cigarettes and traded them for eggs. He was released after he posted bail more than two months later, Li told ICIJ.
“From our communication with Chinese refugees or activists who are in Thailand, it is clear to us that without the cooperation from local authorities, the Chinese authorities are not able to carry out the kind of intimidation and harassment they are able to do,” said Yaqiu Wang, the former Freedom House researcher.
In February, Thai authorities deported at least 40 Uyghurs who had spent a decade in a brutal Thai immigration prison. The group could face torture or other severe punishment in China, U.N. experts warned.
France
2024
In 2024, Xi Jinping landed in Paris on a rainy May afternoon for the first part of a three-leg European tour. Analysts said the trip, his first to Europe since the pandemic, was aimed at both fortifying China’s standing in the region and weakening ties between NATO members.
As Xi’s motorcade traveled from Paris’ Orly Airport, a group of Tibetan activists on a bridge dropped a banner that read, “Free Tibet: Dictator Xi Jinping, your time is up!
From a public trail alongside the road, three people, including two photographers and Topjor Tsultrim, communications director for Students for a Free Tibet, took photos and videos.
Shortly after, several police officers on bicycles rushed toward them, shouting in French, which Tsultrim said he didn’t understand. The police dismounted, grabbed Tsultrim and slammed him into a fence before handcuffing him and the two other observers, he told ICIJ.
The three men were then taken into a police van along with activists who dropped the banner, Tsultrim said. Zip ties dug into his wrists for the hour or so they waited in darkness, he said, before being detained at a police station for several more hours. He was charged with participating in an unsanctioned protest. The charge was quickly dropped after his release.
“It was never a case the government was looking to win,” Tsultrim said. “The upshot of these sorts of tactics is to have a chilling effect on dissent everywhere in the world.”
Two Tibetan women told ICIJ partner Radio France that they were detained the next day after gathering with a crowd on a different Paris bridge to see the president’s motorcade. Both women requested to be identified by pseudonyms for their safety.
Among the spectators was Pema, a French citizen, who pulled out a pen and wrote the words “Free Tibet” in box letters on a small cream-colored tote bag. Within minutes, a police officer told her she couldn’t stay there and escorted her to a police van, she told Radio France.
The second woman, Tsering, held Tibetan and French flags. After Xi’s procession passed, police approached Tsering, took both flags and led her to the same vehicle, she said.
The women were held in a windowless van, then taken to a police station where they were detained without questioning, Tsering told Radio France. The whole ordeal lasted around three hours. An officer told Pema and Tsering that they were taken into custody so the women wouldn’t “get into trouble with the Chinese,” Tsering said. But at hearings months later, authorities told the women they had arrested them for demonstrating without authorization, according to Tsering.
In response to questions, the Paris Police Prefecture said the women were arrested for “participating in a prohibited demonstration on public roads.”
“It’s not the image I had of France, the country of human rights,” Pema told Radio France. “Since that day, I’ve gone to fewer demonstrations and I’m no longer involved in associations because it’s discouraging.”
Serbia
2024
Dejan Marković was bustling around his home in the center of Belgrade, preparing for a trip abroad, when police knocked on his door and instructed him to come to the offices of Serbia’s anti-terrorism department. He accompanied them to the department, where he waited in the chief’s office for about two hours until police handed him an official detention notice.
“There is a well-founded suspicion that the suspect Dejan Marković committed the criminal offense of endangering a person under international protection,” his arrest report states. The document, obtained by ICIJ, ordered that he be detained for up to 48 hours without questioning.
Marković is a longtime Falun Gong practitioner and filmmaker. The Chinese government outlaws the practice of Falun Gong, a meditation-focused spiritual movement, and describes its followers as an “evil cult.” For years, Marković and fellow practitioners wrestled with Belgrade authorities over approvals to hold public gatherings whose goals were to teach passersby about meditation and to raise awareness of China’s persecution of Falun Gong followers. The conflict made international headlines in 2014 when Serbian police detained and deported 11 practitioners who had traveled to the country to advocate for the group. In 2019, Marković produced a documentary about the incident, and two years later, the Constitutional Court of Serbia ruled that police violated the activists’ “right to liberty and security.”
When Xi Jinping stopped in Serbia during his European tour last year, Marković did not plan on participating in any Falun Gong activities, he told ICIJ. Still, local authorities believed he posed a threat. Marković later learned that officers had also arrested seven others, including his brother Vladimir, who is not a follower. They, too, were suspected of “endangering a person under international protection,” a charge deployed against people who commit “abduction or other violence” or “jeopardizes the safety” of a dignitary, under Serbia’s criminal code.
“They take your phone, they take your belt, they take everything from you,” Marković said, describing his overnight stay in a windowless cell. “The biggest problem is that you actually don’t have a way to count time. You sleep and then you awake, but you don’t know whether it’s night or day.”
Serbia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, which oversees the criminal police unit, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
As the detainees languished in their cells, the Serbian government gave Xi a red-carpet welcome complete with a 10-gun salute. Xi and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić signed 28 agreements during the visit, including a controversial extradition treaty.
China and Serbia’s relationship has deepened over the past decade. China is one of the nation’s most important trading partners, and Serbia is a key partner in the Belt and Road Initiative, a plan Xi initially framed as a series of infrastructure projects linking East Asia and Europe but which has since become a symbol of China’s growing economic influence. Between 2009 and 2021, China invested $11.6 billion in various projects in Serbia, according to Balkan Insight. “For the past six years, China has replaced Russia as Serbia’s primary partner outside the Western world,” said Vuk Vuksanović, a senior researcher at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy. “The Serbian government gladly welcomes the Chinese capital.”
China also has a joint patrol agreement with Serbia, deploying its officers to popular tourist spots under the pretext of protecting Chinese citizens.
Serbian police held Marković, his brother Vladimir and the other detainees for a little over 24 hours until Xi left the country. They released them without charges.
During the group’s incarceration, some of the Serbian officers told Marković that they were simply following orders from prosecutors, according to Marković.
Vladimir Marković acknowledged that the police’s job is to examine threats. “That’s all normal, by the book,” he said. “[But] the persons they arrested were not by the book. They were pacifists.”
Dejan Marković said the detainees weren’t questioned by police or a prosecutor.
“So there is a question: Why are we there?” Marković said. “Our government shows us that they actually want to have better relations with China and Russia than [the] Western world.”
Contributors: Gaurav Pokharel (Online Khabar); Reid Standish, Carl Schreck and Merhat Sharipzhan (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty); Jane Tang (Radio Free Asia); Géraldine Hallot and Maxime Tellier (Radio France); and Joanna Robin, Annys Shin, Antonio Cucho Gamboa and Daniela Vivas Labrador (ICIJ).
