{"id":7950,"date":"2017-01-04T22:03:31","date_gmt":"2017-01-05T03:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=7950"},"modified":"2017-01-05T03:07:04","modified_gmt":"2017-01-05T08:07:04","slug":"a-human-rights-activist-a-secret-prison-and-a-tale-from-xi-jinpings-new-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/a-human-rights-activist-a-secret-prison-and-a-tale-from-xi-jinpings-new-china","title":{"rendered":"A human rights activist, a secret prison and a tale from Xi Jinping’s new China"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"peter-dahlin2\"Peter Dahlin spent 23 days in a \u2018black prison\u2019 in Beijing, where he says he was deprived of sleep and questioned with a \u2018communication enhancement\u2019 machine. Here he tells the story of his incarceration and expulsion from the People\u2019s Republic<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Tom Phillips<\/a><\/span> in<\/span> Chiang Mai
\nSome nights Peter Dahlin says he tucks a \u201cbig-ass knife\u201d under his bed in case intruders come for him as he dozes; others he cannot sleep at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve kidnapped people several times here before,\u201d says the 36-year-old Swedish human rights activist, chain-smoking Marlboro cigarettes as he remembers the 23 days he spent in secret detention in China<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

It has been a year since Dahlin became one of the first foreign victims of President Xi Jinping\u2019s war on dissent<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

On 3 January 2016 Chinese security agents encircled the activist\u2019s Beijing home and spirited him and his Chinese girlfriend, Pan Jinling, off to a covert interrogation centre he now calls \u201cThe Residence\u201d.<\/p>\n

Months have now passed but the memories of that spell in custody have proved hard to shake. \u201cThese facilities are built to break you,\u201d the campaigner says during a seven-hour interview at a home in Chiang Mai, a city in northern Thailand where he and Pan have lived since he was deported from China amid one of the most severe crackdowns in decades<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The story of Peter Dahlin, told here in unprecedented detail, offers a rare and troubling snapshot of Xi Jinping\u2019s China, where an unforgiving offensive against civil society is now unfolding.<\/p>\n

\"peter-dahlin3\"

Peter Dahlin speaks on camera in a still from video released by China Central Television. Photograph: AP<\/p><\/div>\n

In the four years since Xi became China\u2019s top leader<\/span><\/a> in November 2012, feminist campaigners, journalists, academics, bloggers, publishers, human rights lawyers and even foreign non-governmental organisation workers such as Dahlin have all been targeted in what experts suspect is a coordinated Communist party push to prevent the development of organised opposition to the regime.<\/p>\n

The political situation, which some call the most dire since the Tiananmen Square massacre<\/span><\/a> in 1989, has deteriorated so fast under the current leadership that one scholar claims Xi has built \u201cthe perfect dictatorship\u201d<\/span><\/a> \u2013 an ever-more repressive system that nevertheless avoids major international censure.<\/p>\n

During his stint behind bars the Swedish activist says he was given a firsthand taste of the harshness with which that battle for control is being waged.<\/p>\n