European researchers raise alarm over China s attempts to suppress criticism ANI | Updated: May 10, 2021 06:47 IST
Brussels [Belgium], May 10 (ANI): Some of Europe s China researchers have raised alarm over the repeated efforts of Chinese organisations to stifle criticism as Beijing seeks to aggressively crackdown on findings that cast the country in an unflattering light.
South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that Slovakian academic Matej Simalcik received threatening mails from Luboslav Stora, the director of China-backed Confucius Institute in Bratislava. One of them said: Are you sleeping well? You should be in very big stress, when you are walking down the street. Be Patient. Big Brother is watching you, read a second mail, sent the next day.
European researchers raise alarm over China
ANI
10 May 2021, 11:27 GMT+10
Brussels [Belgium], May 10 (ANI): Some of Europe s China researchers have raised alarm over the repeated efforts of Chinese organisations to stifle criticism as Beijing seeks to aggressively crackdown on findings that cast the country in an unflattering light.
South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that Slovakian academic Matej Simalcik received threatening mails from Luboslav Stora, the director of China-backed Confucius Institute in Bratislava. One of them said: Are you sleeping well? You should be in very big stress, when you are walking down the street. Be Patient. Big Brother is watching you, read a second mail, sent the next day.
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Feb. 11, 2021
Last March, just weeks after the first few cases of COVID-19 started trickling into the Middle East, Chinese state-controlled broadcaster CGTN published a video designed to combat alleged disinformation on the virus’ origins. The video was in Arabic.
The Chinese narrator, who calls herself Ms.V, explains in perfect Arabic that COVID-19 could not have originated at a food market in Wuhan and points to several other possible sources – including the October 2019 Military World Games in that city, where athletes from over 100 countries competed.
“It is expected that patient zero in China came from outside China,” Ms.V says, as translated by Haaretz. While she calls this a novel “explanation” for the source of COVID, the English subtitle opts for the word “interpretation.”
Close knit: The O’Halloran family in happier times with Isabella, Tara, Ben, Scarlett, Richard and Amber all together
Richard O’Halloran, a relative of the late Fine Gael taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, is a director of China International Aviation Leasing Service Co Limited (CALS Ireland). The complex case that he has found himself embroiled in centres on an Airbus A330 airplane that CALS has leased to Finnair, according to David Maughan, partner with law firm William Fry, which acts for CALS.
The chairman of CALS, Min Jiedong, was arrested in China on charges of running an illegal crowdfunding scheme and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. There is no evidence that he used the money to buy the Airbus but the authorities are targeting it because it is a major asset connected to him. In February 2019, O’Halloran flew to China to hold meetings with colleagues after Min was arrested. When he attempted to board his return flight after a week of meetings, he was detained and told h