EU demands answers over employee arrested in China
- A spokeswoman for the bloc said the Chinese national has been in detention since September 2021 and it has not been told the reason
- A report in a French newspaper says the employee has been charged with ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’ – a catch-all charge used to target dissidents
A Chinese citizen working for the European Union has been arrested in China, Brussels said on Friday, adding that it is “concerned for his well-being”.
The Chinese national was detained in September 2021 and EU representatives have not been given any information about the charges against him.
“We can confirm that a local agent of the EU delegation in China has been arrested and detained since September 2021 and we are concerned for his well-being,” Nabila Massrali, the EU’s spokeswoman for foreign affairs, said.
“Despite multiple requests on our side to the Chinese authorities, we have so far not been informed either of the allegation(s) nor of the specific charge(s) he faces. We will continue inquiring until we get a proper answer.”
The case was first reported by French newspaper Le Monde, which named the employee as An Dong who worked in the IT department of the EU delegation in Beijing. The report said he was being held in Sichuan province, thousands of kilometres west of the capital.