Germany arrests Chinese informants for spying on exiles

Chinese consulate

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
German federal and local detectives yesterday raided the homes of four Chinese residents of Munich, who are suspected of spying on the city’s Uighur Chinese community on behalf of the government in Beijing. The four were charged after German counterintelligence agents spotted them holding secret meetings with a Chinese diplomat operating out of China’s consulate in Munich (photo). Munich has the world’s largest Uighur population outside of China, and is home to the World Uighur Congress, which Beijing views as an anti-Chinese organization. The Uighur people are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia, and are primarily concentrated in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. They are mostly Muslim and many of them have campaigned for a long time in favor of increased autonomy or even independence from China. The Munich arrests mark the second such incident in Europe in recent months. On June 16, Sweden’s SAPO security service arrested Babur Mehsut, a Uighur exile of dual Chinese-Swedish nationality, who was apparently monitoring the political activities of Sweden’s tiny Uighur community on behalf of Beijing.