China authorities made a statement on Tuesday, accusing a Swedish co-founder of a legal advocacy group in Beijing of setting up an illegal organization with a Chinese rights lawyer whose activities endanger state security.
Chinese police and national security authorities said that the Swedish, Peter Jesper Dahlin, and some other people have been operating an illegal group called "China Urgent Action Working Group." The authorities said that the unregistered group had received undeclared funding from overseas to carry out criminal activities that jeopardize state security, state media Xinhua reported.
Chinese state television has aired Dahlin's confession made in detention. Dahlin, who was detained by Chinese government on January 3, admitted on Tuesday to illegal activities that affected the Chinese government.
In a 10-minute interview aired on State Broadcaster CCTV, Dahlin said, "I have caused harm to the Chinese government. I have hurt the feelings of the Chinese people. I apologize sincerely for this. And I'm very sorry that this ever happened," the Jurist reported.
Dahlin confessed that he had trained and funded unlicensed lawyers in China to take on cases against the government "in clear violation of the law." He also admitted that he wrote reports without the "real or full facts."
Dahlin co-founded an advocacy website Chinese Urgent Action Working Group, a non-profit orgnization that is registered in Hong Kong as a company. The group provides training for uncertified rural defense lawyers of potential human rights abuse victims. The group's activities including helping the teenage son of a detained lawyer flee abroad.
William Nee, a China researcher for Amnesty International, said that Chinese government is using pretrial confessions against Dahlin, Bloomberg reported. Nee said Dahlin was placed under "residential surveillance," which could be some place like a hotel with no oversight and no access to lawyers. He said Dahlin could be detained for up to six months.
China Urgent Action Working Group said Dahlin's confessions cannot be fully verified as long as he is being held in residential surveillance. The group said the accusations of criminal activity involving rights lawyers only showed that the authorities consider the promotion of human rights to be a criminal activity.
Dahlin is the second Swede to issue a televised confession this week in China. On Sunday, the Chinese government released a taped confession by Gui Min Hai, a Swedish national who wrote books about critics to the ruling Communist Party. Gui Min Hai disappeared in October and in a confession appeared on television saying had turned himself over to Chinese police for a 2004 drunk driving accident.
Chinese authorities have been using televised pretrial confessions of dissidents and activists since 2013, although legal experts say it violates Chinese law. At least 18 such confessions have been made in the country by high-profile activists, bloggers and journalist.
