Aus must bar any links with CCP’s forced repatriation agency
The release of Safeguard Defenders findings into the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Dictatorship’s global operation to force Chinese nationals home raises serious questions over Australia’s potential links to the CCP’s governmental body that carries out such illegal operations.
Safeguard Defenders is a human rights NGO founded in late 2016 that undertakes and supports local field activities that contribute to the protection of basic rights, promote the rule of law and enhance the ability of local civil society and human rights defenders in some of the most hostile environments in Asia, including China.
Safeguard Defenders report found that since the end of 2021, 10,000 Chinese were forcibly returned to China primarily by intimidating family members back in China, sending police and agents overseas on illegal missions to intimidate targets to return or, in extreme cases, kidnapping. According to a US intelligence source in the report, “some ten people had been directly kidnapped in Australia.”
The National Supervision Commission (NSC), which oversees the forced repatriation programme, is a non-judicial organ of the CCP. The NSC has an active MOU with the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
Liberal senator for Tasmania, Eric Abetz, said the report’s findings were disturbing, and the MOU with the NSC must be investigated to ensure Australia is not cooperating or unwittingly supporting the NSC with its illegal operations.
“The disturbing revelations in the report highlight the urgent need for greater scrutiny of foreign interference in Australia, particularly concerning the Australian Federal Police’s (AFP) MOU with the National Supervision Commission (NSC).
“The NSC is a Chinese Communist Party organ - not a foreign law enforcement agency – and given the AFP’s MOU with the NSC, Australia must urgently review its cooperation with this non-judicial organ that allegedly oversees involuntary repatriation, arbitrary detention, intimidation and kidnappings not only here in Australia, but all around the world.
The Chinese diaspora must be given guarantees that Australia is not formally or informally in any way linked with these human rights abuses via its MOU with the NSC.”
Senator Abetz is the Chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee and a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security.