Illegal and secret police stations operated by China that were first revealed in September have now shut down, said Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra on Tuesday, saying this had been confirmed by the Chinese Embassy to the Netherlands.
On 2 November, D66 MPs Hanneke van der Werf and Sjoerd Sjoerdsma. submitted a series of questions to the government to which Hoesktra finally answered.
“The establishment in the Netherlands of such ‘overseas police service stations’ is unacceptable. The cabinet has therefore taken immediate steps and the stations have now been closed,” Hoekstra said.
In September, Safeguard Defenders, a human rights NGO, published a report on what they called Chinese “overseas police service stations” that violate the international rule of law.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Bo de Koning told EURACTIV that “appropriate organisations are continuously working on any signals they receive in this regard.”
However, it is not yet clear whether these stations were involved in operational police tasks or intimidation, said Hoekstra, adding that “the exercise of government tasks by China on Dutch territory without the explicit consent of the Dutch State is, as stated, unlawful.”
(Sofia Stuart Leeson | EURACTIV.com)
Source: euractiv.com
