{"id":142193,"date":"2012-08-23T06:03:58","date_gmt":"2012-08-23T13:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=142193"},"modified":"2012-08-23T14:18:44","modified_gmt":"2012-08-23T21:18:44","slug":"xinhua-accused-of-monitoring-critics-in-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2012\/08\/xinhua-accused-of-monitoring-critics-in-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"Xinhua Accused of Monitoring China Critics in Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"
When Canadian MP Bob Dechert was found to have sent flirtatious emails to a Toronto-based Xinhua correspondent<\/a> last year, it stoked suspicions that China’s official news agency doubles as an arm of its intelligence apparatus. A former Xinhua contributor in Ottawa has now accused the agency of using parliamentary press accreditation to gather information meant for official eyes only<\/strong><\/a>. From Kathryn Blaze Carlson at National Post:<\/p>\n \u201cThey tried to get me \u2026 to write a report for the Chinese government on the Dalai Lama using my press credentials as a way of getting access I wouldn\u2019t otherwise have,\u201d Mr. Bourrie, a long-time freelancer who has written for several major Canadian newspapers, said in an interview with the National Post. He alleges there are individuals within Xinhua who are acting as spies, seeking to \u201cmonitor [practitioners of the spiritual movement] Falun Gong, the Dalai Lama and any other critics of the Chinese government in Canada. That, I know for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n [\u2026] Mr. Bourrie said \u201c90%\u201d of his assignments were \u201cnormal\u201d and that all of his own work was \u201clegit,\u201d but he also said there were warning bells along the way. The first sounded in June 2010, when he was asked to determine not only the identities of those who protested Chinese president Hu Jintao\u2019s arrival at the G20 Summit in Toronto, but also where those protesters were staying.<\/p>\n [\u2026 L]ater he said he started receiving \u201cweird\u201d requests, including an assignment to determine how Canada deals with what Mr. Zhang [Dacheng, Xinhua’s Ottawa bureau chief] apparently called \u201cevil cults\u201d \u2014 more specifically, Mr. Bourrie said, he was interested in Falun Gong.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n