The center-right Swedish government has decided to expel a Chinese journalist who has been detained since October. According to the security police, the woman poses a “serious threat to national security”.
The woman herself denies all charges, and her lawyer points to a lack of transparency and legal certainty, saying it has been very difficult to even respond to the charges.
The journalist has lived in Sweden for almost 20 years and is also married to a Swedish man with whom she has children. She also runs her own news website with a strong focus on Chinese politics and culture.
However, the taxpayer-funded SVT and Göteborgs-Posten reveal that the center-right government has decided to ban her from Sweden for life – and Säpo, the Swedish Security Police, claims that she has been engaged in “security-threatening activities” for more than a decade.
On October 9, she was arrested by the Swedish Security Police and has since been detained under the Act on Special Control of Certain Foreigners (Lagen om särskild kontroll av vissa utlänningar).
“The information available to the authority is very reliable and the appellant is a serious threat to national security”, Säpo told the Migration Court of Appeal (Migrationsöverdomstolen).
Justice minister signs decision
An initial lifetime deportation order was issued in November, but was appealed to the Migration Court of Appeal, which still ruled that the government should deport the journalist, and last week Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer (M) signed a decision rejecting the woman’s appeal.
The details of the “security-threatening activities” are not specified, but it is emphasized that she had long-standing and close contacts with the Chinese embassy and other persons linked to the Chinese government, and that, according to SVT, she “brought a number of Chinese government and company delegations to Sweden” and “tried to arrange visits to various ministries”.
In a report by the National Knowledge Center on China at the Swedish Institute of Foreign Policy, the woman was also identified as responsible for one of the “Chinese-language diaspora media” allegedly linked to the Chinese Communist Party’s influence operations, Sweden’s tax-funded state broadcaster SVT reported.
“Violates European Convention on Human Rights”
However, the woman’s lawyer, Leutrim Kadriu, is not impressed with the way the case has been handled, arguing that basic legal certainty is lacking.
– It has always been and still is her firm opinion that she is not a threat to Sweden’s security, that she has done nothing that could lead to the assumption that she is a serious threat to security, and that she has denied all the allegations made against her.
He further argues that the standard of proof in this type of case is very low, that the accused and her legal counsel are not allowed to participate in much of the evidence, and that in practice it becomes very difficult for an individual to respond to the allegations at all.
– I think this violates the European Convention on Human Rights, he continues.
– She is obviously very disappointed. On the one hand, you get a deportation order, but also that the order is combined with a lifetime ban on returning, because she has family in Sweden.
