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world news Diaranson 23 september 2020

Aussie reporter says China threatened to detain his daughter

(AP) — A former Australian correspondent in “Your daughter is 14 years old. She is an adult un- your government is going to introduce harsh laws
Beijing said Monday that he and his 14-year-old der Chinese law and as the People’s Republic of we don’t agree with, well then there is a price to be
daughter were threatened with detention before China is a law-abiding country she will be charged paid.”
they left China two years ago. with the visa crime,” Carney said he was told. He “In retrospect, that’s what I think it was, thank
said the woman told him his daughter could be God. They didn’t follow through on their threats,”
Matthew Carney said he had not revealed the 2018 detained “with other adults” in an undisclosed lo- Carney said.
incident until now because he had wanted to avoid cation. “She was obviously very skilled in interro-
“negative consequences“ for Australian Broadcast- gation and in ramping up the fear and the panic,” Carney said he made the sudden decision to leave
ing Corp.’s operations in China. Carney said. Carney said he offered to leave China China after a Chinese woman threatened to sue
Two weeks ago, reporters for the state-funded ABC with his wife and three children the next day, but him for defamation over a story he reported about
and The Australian Financial Review newspaper was told he could not leave the country while he Chinese attempts to engineer better citizen behav-
became the last two Australian journalists working was under investigation. ior. He had legal advice that he would be banned
for Australian media to leave China due to threats from leaving once legal proceedings were initiated
of detention. With his visa due to expire within days, the official against him.
said he would be placed in detention rather than Australia updated its travel advice in July to warn
Carney was the ABC’s China bureau chief in 2018 deported on its expiration. its citizens of potential arbitrary detention on secu-
when Australia passed laws outlawing covert for- After consultation with the Australian Embassy and rity grounds in China.
eign interference in domestic politics, which he the ABC, Carney said he decided to confess his
said “outraged” China. Carney said the laws start- guilt and apologize for the “bizarre visa violation,” Chinese-Australian spy novelist and blogger Yang
ed “three months of intimidation and all types of on condition that his daughter was allowed to stay Hengjun has been detained in China since he ar-
threats” against him and his family. with the family. rived on a flight from New York in January last year
Carney told his story in an interview aired on ABC in what some suspect is a Chinese reaction to de-
radio and in an account posted on the news organi- Their confessions were video recorded and the teriorating bilateral relations. Yang has since been
zation's website Monday. There was no immediate woman told him she would write a report to “the charged with endangering state security.
response from China. higher authority” for judgment.
Carney said he was told to bring this 14-year-old With the family’s visas about to expire, the official The Chinese foreign ministry said the day the last
daughter, Yasmine, to a Beijing Public Security fa- said the judgment could be weeks away. two Australian journalists working for Australian
cility where interrogations and detentions were the But he got a phone call the next day and was told media in China left the country that Australian citi-
norm. two-month extensions had been granted to their zen Cheng Lei, a business news anchor for CGTN,
visas. He said he thought it was “some bizarre the- China’s English-language state media channel, had
A woman official told him that he and his daughter ater” to send a message to himself and Australia's been detained on suspicion of national security
were being investigated for a “visa crime.” government that "A, if you do bad reporting, B, if crimes.

Ex-UK PM May slams Johnson's bid to break international law

(AP) — The British govern- vote for it. EU country. The British government in-
ment on Monday won over But May, who was the coun- Johnson’s move to break Britain and the EU jointly sists it is committed to up-
some domestic political op- try's Conservative prime parts of the EU divorce deal promised in the Brexit di- holding the EU withdrawal
ponents of its plan to breach minister between 2016 and relating to Northern Ireland vorce agreement to ensure agreement and the peace ac-
part of the Brexit divorce 2019, said the government has triggered fears it could there are no customs posts or cord. But many, including
deal it agreed upon with the was acting “recklessly and ir- undermine the 1998 Good other obstacles on the North- May, have warned that the
European Union — but not responsibly, with no thought Friday peace accord that end- ern Ireland-Ireland border. proposed law could destabi-
former Prime Minister The- for the long-term impact on ed decades of violence be- The open border is key to the lize the peace settlement.
resa May, who warned that the standing of the United tween Irish nationalists and stability that underpins the
the move would do “untold Kingdom in the world.” British unionists. peace settlement.
damage” to the U.K.
May struck a divorce deal
Prime Minister Boris John- with the EU in 2018 after
son’s Conservative admin- two years of painstaking ne-
istration has sparked anger gotiations. She resigned last
from the EU and unease year after repeatedly failing to
from many British lawmak- get Parliament to approve it.
ers with legislation that gives “This is a country that up-
his government the power to holds the rule of law,” she
override part of the legally said. “It is one of the things
binding Brexit withdrawal that makes us great. It is one
agreement relating to North- of our characteristics. … Yet
ern Ireland. we’re being asked to tear up
The government says the that principle and throw away
Internal Market Bill is an in- that value.” Referring to one
surance policy to guarantee of Johnson’s catchphrases,
goods can flow freely to all she said: “So much for Glob-
parts of the U.K. in case Brit- al Britain.” Johnson's gov-
ain and the EU fail to reach a ernment hopes to shepherd
trade agreement and the bloc the bill through Parliament
tries to disrupt trade between and into law in the coming
Northern Ireland and the weeks. The EU says it will
rest of the country. take legal action if the U.K.
does not drop the lawbreak-
On Monday, the British gov- ing provisions by the end of
ernment agreed to amend the September.
bill to give lawmakers a vote
before the override powers Northern Ireland has spe-
can be used. That was enough cial status in the withdrawal
for some Conservatives who agreement because it is the
had previously opposed the only part of the U.K. that
bill but said they would now shares a land border with an