The People's Republic of the Disappeared (2nd edition): Stories from inside China's system for enforced disappearances by Caster Michael

Author:Caster, Michael [Caster, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: China, human rights, nonfiction, retail, secret prisons, totalitarianism, surveillance state
Publisher: Safeguard Defenders
Published: 2017-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

Swedish citizen Peter Dahlin is one of the growing numbers of foreigners China has disappeared into RSDL. He continues to support rule of law in China via his Spain-based NGO Safeguard Defenders.

Image source: Peter Dahlin

Chapter 8

Enhanced interrogation | PETER DAHLIN

Swedish citizen Peter Dahlin moved to China in 2007 after a stint working for his government back home. In Beijing, he started volunteering for the Empowerment and Rights Institute, an NGO founded by rights defender Hou Wenzhuo, who was later forced into exile in Canada.

In 2009, Dahlin, Michael Caster (see Introduction) and Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang founded China Action, an NGO that provided legal and financial assistance to rights defenders at risk, organized trainings to develop the capacity of rights defense lawyers and local barefoot lawyers, and ran legal aid stations across China offering pro-bono help to victims of illegal government action spanning torture and arbitrary detention to land grabs.

By the time agents from China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) stormed into his house in Beijing in early January 2016, Chinese police had taken away several of his colleagues, some detained or arrested, others placed in RSDL throughout the summer and autumn of 2015.

That January, the MSS placed Peter, as well as his girlfriend Pan Jinling (Chapter 9) and several of his co-workers into RSDL in a custom-built facility in southern Beijing, where they spent nearly a month in isolated cells.

Several weeks later, and following his coerced appearance in a confession broadcast on China’s state broadcaster CCTV, Dahlin was deported and banned from re-entering China. He has since been the target of several media campaigns by the Chinese state.

It was too dangerous for colleagues remaining in the country to continue the work of the NGO, and so China Action was dismantled. Instead, Dahlin, who had moved to Thailand by then, set about creating a new NGO, based on his extensive experiences gained in running field operations in China.

In late 2016, he founded Safeguard Defenders, which aims to help civil society actors in the most hostile environments across Asia, assist human rights lawyers with public interest litigation and build capacity for local civil society organizations to help their communities. Safeguard Defenders also set about exposing new systems and trends that had otherwise been overlooked, and one of its initial tasks was releasing the first edition of this book revealing the RSDL system through real-life stories, followed by a ground-breaking report, Scripted and Staged, and a book, Trial By media, both exposing China’s use of Forced TV Confessions. He currently runs the organization from its main office in Madrid.

Dahlin has talked about his struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), partially stemming from living in China at constant risk for many years, and partially due to his time in RSDL. He works with local activists to help strengthen their access to counseling and self-help materials and to ensure that the mental stress they suffer from being disappeared, intense interrogations, torture and prolonged detention does not cripple their ability to continue fighting for the human rights cause in China.

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