Sweden has expelled a Chinese journalist, saying she is a threat to national security, AP reported, citing Swedish media, BTA reports.
The journalist, a 57-year-old woman whose name has not been released, was arrested by Swedish security services in October and expelled by the government in Stockholm last week, Swedish public broadcaster SVT reported.
The woman arrived in the Scandinavian country about 20 years ago. According to the TV, she had a residence permit and was married to a Swede with whom they had children. The woman had contacts with the Chinese embassy and with people in Sweden who are connected to the Chinese government.
Her lawyer says on TV that the woman does not think she is a threat to Sweden. “It is difficult for me to go into details as most of them are shrouded in secrecy because it is a matter of national security,”, he said.
The Norwegian radio and television company reported that the journalist also worked in Norway as well as in other northern countries, incl. Denmark, Finland and Iceland.
Relations between Stockholm and Beijing have been strained for years, AP noted.
In 2020, a court in eastern China convicted Chinese-born but Swedish citizen Gui Minghai of “illegally providing information abroad”. China has rejected Swedish demands for Gui's release. He disappeared in 2015 when he is believed to have been abducted by Chinese agents from his home on the coast of Thailand.
The case led to an investigation into Sweden's ambassador to China over a meeting she arranged between Gui's daughters and two Chinese businessmen who the daughters say threatened their father. Suspicion on the ambassador, Anna Lindstedt, eventually falls.
In 2018, a Swedish court convicted a man of espionage for China for gathering information about Tibetans who had fled to Sweden. A Tibetan who worked for a pro-Tibetan radio was sentenced to 22 months in prison for “gross illegal intelligence activity”.