加拿大夫妇 (原丹东) 讲述被中国扣留经过

choi

杰茜卡‧墨菲, 加拿大夫妇凯文·加勒特讲述被中国扣留经过. BBC Chinese, Jan 31, 2019
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-47066058

, which is translated from

Jessica Murphy (Toronto), Kevin and Julia Garratt on Their Experience as Detainees in China. BBC Chinese, Jan 29, 2019.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46981048

Quote: "The Garratts [arrested on Aug 5, 2014] had lived in China since 1984, and from 2008 operated a coffee house [Peter's Coffee House: coffee and Western food] popular with Western expats and tourists in Dandong, a city on the North Korean border, while continuing to carry out Christian aid work.  But unbeknownst to either of them, early in 2014 and thousands of miles away, American authorities were launching a crackdown on Chinese cyber-espionage. One of the men in their sights was Su Bin 苏斌 [a hacker into Boeing], a Chinese resident working in Canada.  That June, Canadian authorities picked up Su, accused of stealing data about military projects and selling it to China, for extradition to the US.  While China has denied it, Canadian officials and observers believed the Garratts' arrest was a tit-for-tat detention and an attempt to pressure Canada for Su's release.  Canada's ambassador in Beijing at the time, Guy Saint-Jacques, describes them as 'a couple of Canadian missionaries who had been in China 30 years doing good work.'  He tells the BBC their arrest 'was the first case where we saw a clear retaliation for something that had happened in Canada.'  When he met counterparts at the foreign ministry about the case, Saint-Jacques recalls: 'They never said directly "let's do a swap." But it was very clear what they wanted.'  The Garratts say they were never physically harmed but were watched by guards around the clock, and had to request the most basic necessities when they needed them [water to drink, brushing teeth]. * * * Julia says the first few nights, she put a blanket over her eyes to block the light, but the guard pulled it down. * * * They also experienced daily interrogations for up to six hours. * * * Some four years later, they have documented their experience in a book, Two Tears on the Window, published in November. * * * She was released on bail in February 2015, pending trial. In January 2016, still in detention, Kevin was charged with stealing state secrets.  A month later [February; I do not have the date], Su waived extradition and headed to the US, where in March he pleaded guilty [on Mar 23, 2016; sentenced on July 13, 2016 for 46 months (starting from the time of his arrest and then detention without bail) ] to hacking into major US defence contractors, stealing sensitive military data and sending it to China.  Saint-Jacques says that Chinese officials seemed taken by surprise by Su's decision to cut a deal with American officials.  He believes that turn of events, combined with a visit to China by Justin Trudeau, during which the newly elected PM raised Kevin's case, were instrumental in securing Kevin's release.  He was deported to Canada in September 2016 after 775 days in detention, and reunited with Julia, who had left the country earlier that year.

Note:
(a) A sidebar of this article has: "Tit for tat arrests [which is sectional heading:] • About 200 Canadians held in China
(b) list of ambassadors of Canada to China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li ... _of_Canada_to_China
("Guy Saint-Jacques        2012 [to] October 9, 2016[;]
John McCallum          March 18, 2017 [to] January 26, 2019 [under prime minister Justin Trudeau (Nov 4, 2015- ; Trudeau's predecessor was Stephen Harper of a different party; )]")