On May 20, Wang Jingyu, a permanent resident of the United States who was chased online by the Chinese police in Chongqing for questioning the real situation of Chinese soldiers killed and wounded in the Sino-Indian border conflict last year, suddenly asked for help through his friends, saying that he was arrested by the local police in Dubai in April while transferring to the United States and was now in danger of being returned to China. However, our reporter’s investigation revealed that the incident is more complicated.
Reporter: Are you okay where you are being held?
Wang Jingyu: Yes, I’m fine, I can’t die anyway.
Wang Jingyu is currently being held in the Dubai police detention center. He speaks on the phone with a sense of humor characteristic of his Chongqing accent, but the case he is facing is not an easy one.
Guilty?
Wang Jingyu was suddenly arrested by local police in Dubai on April 5, when he changed planes in Dubai on his way to the United States from Istanbul, Turkey.
“Just getting off the plane in Dubai, I was ready to go through the transit security area, and at an airplane gate, somehow I was arrested.”
After being held at the Dubai immigration office for 48 hours, Wang was escorted to a local police detention center and held there to this day. During this process, Dubai police informed Wang that he was arrested on suspicion of “insulting religion.
Wang did not acknowledge the charge, “It’s a completely made-up crime.” He also said in an interview with some Chinese media that he was only crossing the border from Dubai, so how could he have insulted the religion?
According to the “bail application number” provided by Wang’s friend, our reporter found the preliminary information of the case on the website of the Dubai Public Prosecutor’s Office, which mentioned that Wang was suspected of “insulting a recognized monotheistic religion”.
Another source in the UAE government told us on condition of anonymity that information from the judicial system showed that Wang had visited Dubai between late 2019 and early 2020 and stayed at a member hotel; when he left the hotel, he left a message on the hotel’s website insulting the hotel’s service staff and insulting the Islamic deity Allah. These actions violated the UAE’s criminal laws, so now police are charging Wang Jingyu with two counts of insulting another person and insulting a religion.
Wang told the station by phone that the court has now dismissed the charges against him in the case. Wang’s friend added that the case was dismissed on May 11. When our correspondent asked his friend for the court’s notice of dismissal, he was told that he was still trying to get the dismissal papers.
However, our correspondent found on the website of the Dubai Public Prosecutor’s Office that the case is under investigation. The aforementioned UAE government source also said that the Public Prosecutor’s Office is still investigating the case, and the time of prosecution to the court is still uncertain.
Confusing “Chinese embassy and consulate staff”
From the information available so far, this appears to be a simple criminal case. However, on May 20, Wang Jingyu asked for help through his friends, raising the suspicion of political involvement in the case.
Wang told the station that during his detention, Chinese embassies and consulates in the UAE showed up one after another, with the aim of getting the UAE to repatriate Wang.
“From the time I was arrested, they came three times, the first time from the Chinese Embassy in Abu Dhabi, and the last two times from the Chinese Consulate General in Dubai, just to get me to sign and to say to me that this way I wouldn’t have to go to jail.”
Wang Jingyu stressed that these embassy and consulate personnel also promised him that when he returned to China, the police would not arrest him and put him in jail, but just make a statement. But because the documents were in Arabic, Wang did not sign them because he was worried about their legal consequences.
He was even more worried about political persecution if he was returned to China because of the political turmoil caused by his previous outspoken comments about the conflict between India and China. Wang Jingyu has told the media that Chinese police had repeatedly pressured him to return to China and turn himself in.
We sent emails to the Chinese Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the Chinese Consulate General in Dubai inquiring about this case, but have not received a reply by press time.
However, the aforementioned UAE government source said that no written record of Chinese embassy or consulate personnel visiting the detention center to talk to Wang has been found.
Ahmed Zaai, a bail bondsman in Wang’s case, doubted the possibility of visits by embassy personnel, saying, “Because of the new epidemic, there are restrictions on opening the facility for visits. It used to be possible, but in the current situation, it’s hard to say. I can’t say yes, or no.”
For her part, Wang’s friend told the station that she has not been able to get her hands on the documents Wang claims the Chinese embassy and consulate asked him to sign because he is in the detention center.
Mystery of bail
According to the website of the Dubai Public Prosecutor’s Office, Wang applied for bail on April 19 and was granted it on April 26. According to the aforementioned UAE government source, as long as Wang Jingyu took his passport out on pledge, he could get out of detention and live locally pending his case.
But Wang did not exercise this right. The source said he did not understand the situation, while Ahmad, a bail bondsman, said that Wang did not exercise his right to bail in a timely manner because he did not understand the bail process.
My lawyer told me that there was no way to use judicial means to solve this case. He said there was a special reason. Then the reason is the Chinese Communist Party. Because he said, if you want to follow the legal level, you should not be in prison now.”
Wang stressed to the station that although bail has been granted, the detention center has not released him because the Immigration Bureau wants to deport him. Wang’s friend told us that she was informed by his lawyer that the INS had not informed him of the reason for his deportation; however, the lawyer was not available for interviews with the media.
“Rescue”
Wang Jingyu told the station that he sought help based on his lawyer’s advice, “I also revealed something to him [the lawyer], I said I might be in trouble in China, I definitely can’t go back to China. He then said that you might need to find some international organization to focus on this matter because there is no way you can get your freedom back through due process of law.”
On May 20, Wang Jingyu gave interviews to at least four Chinese-language media outlets, including this station. News of his detention in Dubai also spread quickly on Twitter and other social media, but most of these messages focused on his previous political turmoil.
U.S. Aid to China President Fu Xiqiu told the station that he initiated rescue procedures in the first instance after learning that Wang Jingyu was in danger of being deported to China. Currently, White House officials have intervened to rescue.
“This is a very serious matter, so I immediately contacted senior officials from the White House National Security Council, and then also officials from multiple departments of the State Department, and they acted immediately. I was also told by State Department and White House officials that they were on top of this.”
Ma Ju, a current affairs analyst at Spiegel News Group who currently lives in New York, believes this reaction from the outside world is understandable. Ma has lived in Dubai for a long time and knows of many cases of Chinese Xinjiang Uighurs who have been arrested by Chinese police at Abu Dhabi and Dubai airports in the United Arab Emirates and put directly on flights back to China.
He also revealed that “now the Chinese police have stations in the UAE where they are staying in the name of investigating economic cases, but in reality they have another mission, which is to intimidate and arrest dissidents.”
But what is important, according to Ma Ju, is the truth about the case of Wang Jingyu itself.
Ahmed, the bail bondsman in Wang’s case, told the station that Wang’s appeal to the media may not work, but may make the situation worse. He believes that the law in the UAE is fair and people are not put in jail for no reason.
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