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President Joe Biden’s Justice Department is facing demands for an investigation into Chinese Communist Party attacks on people protesting President Xi Jinping’s visit to San Francisco this month. The House Committee on China, in a letter exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com, published reports of the attacks, which included protesters “confronted by Xi’s supporters wielding (sic) metal bars, flagpoles, closed umbrellas and pepper spray.”
“This is just one of many examples of the CCP’s attempts to intimidate, silence, and harm People’s Republic of China (PRC) dissidents living in the United States,” the letter, sent on Wednesday, said. has been sent to the Ministry of Justice. The select committee, chaired by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), said the purpose of the letter is to “express outrage” at the “criminals” but also asks for a briefing on the attacks before the end of the year.
It also asks that the DOJ “provide a description of what policies your office is implementing to ensure these vulnerable people are protected.” Pro-democracy protesters critical of Xi’s human rights abuses and growing threats against the independent island of Taiwan demonstrated outside the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco, California, earlier in November.
The tension became especially heated after pro-CCP demonstrators clashed with those opposing Xi’s visit — and especially his status as “guest of honor” at a swanky dinner with business and political leaders. Chairman Gallagher and his committee want the DOJ to turn over “information regarding the recent attacks on peaceful pro-democracy protesters.”
Ahead of the summit and Xi’s visit to the US to meet with President Biden and other world leaders, pro-democracy protesters received a slew of threats via social media from Xi supporters warning they would face violence in San Francisco . These attacks and continued threats were detailed in the Chinese Commission letter and included reports of protest organizers being followed in the streets by “plainclothes officers believed to have been dispatched from the Chinese consulate.”
In particular, Jie Lijian, a Chinese dissident and organizer of the protest, said that “he and his fellow activists were initially followed by a group of five or six men of Chinese descent who looked like plainclothes police officers or plainclothes military officers.” . just outside the APEC site,” the letter said.
The committee, set up with the aim of investigating emerging threats from China, found that 15 pro-democracy protesters had “suffered harm from Xi supporters,” according to the letter obtained by DailyMail.com.
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