Australia has granted a protection visa to a former Chinese policeman who claims to have information on the torture and abuse of dissidents in China, his lawyer said yesterday.
Hao Fengjun (郝鳳軍), 32, received the visa last week, a day after testifying at a Senate inquiry into the government's handling of another high-profile Chinese defector, lawyer Bernard Collaery said.
Hao claims to have worked for a Chinese security department known as the 610 Office, where his job was to handle reports from overseas informants spying on pro-democracy activists and followers of the Falun Gong meditation movement. He arrived in Australia in February as a tourist and subsequently sought asylum, saying he had brought secret documents detailing the torture and abuse by Chinese authorities of Falun Gong practitioners. His case became public after a first secretary at China's consulate in Sydney, Chen Yonglin (陳用林), quit his post and demanded political asylum in May, asserting that China had up to 1,000 spies operating in Australia.
PHOTO: EPA
After initially refusing the request, the government granted Chen, 37, a protection visa early last month. Both Hao and Chen testified last week to a Senate committee looking into the government's handling of Chen's initial asylum request. Collaery told the same inquiry that immigration officials ignored Hao for months and only interviewed the former policeman early last month after he went public with his claims about abuse of Falun Gong members.
Yesterday, Collaery suggested his client finally received a protection visa allowing him to remain in Australia only because of the publicity surrounding last week's Senate hearings.
"It took that kind of pressure ... to get protection in our country," he was quoted as saying by the Australian Associated Press.
Collaery spoke as Hao attended a protest by about 80 Falun Gong followers near a Canberra court that was hearing a complaint by the movement against Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
Their suit claims Downer's department unfairly curbs freedom of expression by imposing restrictions on protest demonstrations outside the Chinese embassy in Canberra.
‘EYE FOR AN EYE’: Two of the men were shot by a male relative of the victims, whose families turned down the opportunity to offer them amnesty, the Supreme Court said Four men were yesterday publicly executed in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court said, the highest number of executions to be carried out in one day since the Taliban’s return to power. The executions in three separate provinces brought to 10 the number of men publicly put to death since 2021, according to an Agence France-Presse tally. Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, with most of them carried out publicly in sports stadiums. Two men were shot around six or seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the center
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is leaning into his banking background as his country fights a trade war with the US, but his financial ties have also made him a target for conspiracy theories. Incorporating tropes familiar to followers of the far-right QAnon movement, conspiratorial social media posts about the Liberal leader have surged ahead of the country’s April 28 election. Posts range from false claims he recited a “satanic chant” at a campaign event to artificial intelligence (AI)-generated images of him in a pool with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “He’s the ideal person to be targeted here, for sure, due to
DISPUTE: Beijing seeks global support against Trump’s tariffs, but many governments remain hesitant to align, including India, ASEAN countries and Australia China is reaching out to other nations as the US layers on more tariffs, in what appears to be an attempt by Beijing to form a united front to compel Washington to retreat. Days into the effort, it is meeting only partial success from countries unwilling to ally with the main target of US President Donald Trump’s trade war. Facing the cratering of global markets, Trump on Wednesday backed off his tariffs on most nations for 90 days, saying countries were lining up to negotiate more favorable conditions. China has refused to seek talks, saying the US was insincere and that it
RSS