Beijing is expanding its spying operations against Tibetan dissidents, including through the use of DNA, according to pro-Tibet activists. The use of technology and police minority groups and dissidents has been increasing in recent years.
Members of the International Campaign for Tibet, including its chair of its board of directors Richard Gere, spoke at a news conference outside of the Capitol Building. The actor described a number of repressions by the communist government during a press conference in Washington.
Gere then testified before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. He said last month that the “CCP’s techno-authoritarianism and fear tactics extend to Tibetan communities abroad.”
China invaded Tibet in 1950.
The actions against the region have been part of a government-led program against religion led by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
China has repressed a number of religious groups within the country, including Buddhists in Tibet, Muslims in Xinjiang, the Falun Gong faith and Christians.
In the testimony before the commission, Gere spoke alongside other witnesses, who testified about several major cases of abuse by Beijing.
These include separating children from their families through a system of boarding schools, as well as repression of the Tibetan language.
American companies also sold Beijing DNA-collection tools that were allegedly used by Chinese police in Tibet and Xinjiang to take DNA from residents.
One report stated that the government collected about one million samples from Tibetans.
The People’s Republic has increasingly used its security state against internal and external dissent of late.
Internationally, Beijing has set up approximately 100 police stations to allegedly spy on dissidents.
This week, two New Yorkers were arrested in connection to a station that operated out of Manhattan. The Department of Justice announced that China ran the station until last year.
U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said that China ran the station out of a “nondescript office building.” Peace said that a Chinese police official ordered one of the two defendants to spy on an opponent of the Chinese Communist Party in California.
This was an effort to “track a U.S. resident on U.S. soil.”
China uses agents to harass Americans of Chinese descent here inside the U.S.
Today’s arrests are only the tip of the iceberg https://t.co/p3xnbZqLw5
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) April 17, 2023
An FBI official told Fox News that the police station was set up on behalf of Beijing and that “members of the Chinese consulate in New York even paid a visit to it after it opened.”
