Chinese dissident Liu Dongling is at risk of deportation back to China after Denmark rejected her asylum application in June, a situation some rights advocates say reflects challenges Chinese dissidents face when seeking refuge abroad, especially in Europe.
Liu has been leading the “Ban the Great Firewall” online campaign against China’s internet censorship regime since August 2023, when founder Qiao Xinxin was deported back to China from Laos and detained on subversion charges.
Danish immigration authorities informed Liu in June they rejected her asylum application following a two-year review and would repatriate her back to China in seven days. Fearing similar charges if deported to China, Liu fled to Sweden with her teenage son the next day.
“I’ve been in Sweden for more than two months, and I still can’t work here since I don’t have a proper legal status,” she told VOA in an interview in Stockholm.
Lui cannot apply for asylum in Sweden due to the Dublin Regulation, an agreement between European Union countries that establishes that a single country is responsible for examining an applicant's request for asylum.
Contacted by VOA, the Danish Immigration Service and Danish Return Agency said they could not comment on individual cases, citing confidentiality required by law.
Human rights advocates contacted by VOA said that based on Qiao’s detention, Liu will likely face imprisonment if the Danish authorities deport her.
“Apart from leading the online free speech campaign, Liu has also been collecting information about human rights violations for the China Human Rights Accountability Database, so she would definitely be given prison sentences if she were sent back to China,” Lin Shengliang, a Chinese activist based in the Netherlands and the founder of the human rights database, told VOA by phone.
Seeking asylum in Denmark
Liu has been an activist since 2014, when she helped forced eviction victims seek compensation through legal channels. She said she started being followed and her son started being banned by teachers from participating in activities he enjoyed.
“My son began to refuse to go to school so I decided to move to Thailand and let him go to school there,” Liu told VOA.
In June 2019, she began documenting human rights violations for the Chinese news website Boxun, which covers activism and human rights violations in China.
But soon, Chinese prosecutors in China’s Henan province started repeatedly contacting her, increasing her concern over her safety. She nevertheless returned to China twice in 2019 to renew her Thai visa. At the time, she wasn’t arrested or detained by local authorities.
In June 2022, fearing deportation back to China considering the Thai detention and repatriation of Chinese dissidents, Liu applied for a Danish tourist visa and flew there with her son, applying for asylum when they arrived.
As Danish authorities began to review her asylum application in March 2023, she also became involved with the online free speech campaign. She tried to spread information about how to bypass China’s internet censorship through virtual private networks to Chinese people while informing Chinese people working in the cybersecurity sector that they might be assisting the Chinese government with violating Chinese people’s basic human rights.
Two months after she joined the campaign, movement co-founder Qiao Xinxin went missing in Laos. In August 2023, his family confirmed he had been detained in a Chinese prison under subversion charges.
Despite Qiao’s and her extensive history of activism, Liu said Danish authorities repeatedly questioned whether she was at risk of arrest if she returned to China, citing her successful returns to China in 2019 as proof that she could freely leave the country.
“The Refugee Appeals Board finds that the applicant left China legally for Thailand in 2018 and later, she traveled back and forth between China and Thailand legally twice without experiencing issues,” the Danish Refugee Appeals Board wrote in an official case document seen by VOA.
The Danish immigration authorities ultimately determined that Liu had not provided “credible evidence” to prove that she had faced persecution in China and that if she returned to China, she would be persecuted by Chinese authorities.
Some analysts say while Liu has a long track record of criticizing the Chinese government and engaging in human rights issues, some missing pieces of evidence made it difficult for her to prove the authenticity of her claims to the Danish authorities.
However, several human rights organizations, including Madrid-based Safeguard Defenders, are trying to push the Danish immigration authorities to reassess her case.
“We have prepared all the paperwork to support the reassessment of her case,” said Peter Dahlin, the director of Safeguard Defenders.
He told VOA that Denmark’s rejection of Liu’s asylum application shows the need for Chinese dissidents to be well-prepared before applying for asylum in a foreign country.
“If Chinese dissidents are going to seek asylum abroad, they need to prepare all necessary paperwork and evidence to back up their claims,” he said in a phone interview.
Dahlin said if the Danish authorities decided to follow through on deporting Liu to China, human rights organizations will consider filing an interim measure requesting the European Court of Human Rights to weigh in on the decision.
“I don't think Denmark wants the embarrassment of having been told by the European Court of Human Rights to stop their action,” he told VOA.
While human rights organizations are pushing Danish authorities to reassess Liu’s initial asylum application, she and her son may need to wait months before the Danish government finishes reassessment of her case.
“They will live in Sweden with no legal rights, and that’s not an easy situation to be in especially when Sweden and Denmark are hardening their stance on asylum and immigration,” Dahlin said.
Since it remains unclear whether Danish authorities would reassess her case, Liu said she is still haunted by her possible deportation back to China. “I have no clue what my next step is, and the only thing I could do now is to lay low and wait to see if Danish authorities reassess my asylum application,” she told VOA.
