An attorney for Australian activist Drew Pavlou, who has spent years advocating against Chinese Communist Party atrocities, accused the “Chinese state” in an interview on Monday of framing his client with a fake bomb threat email to London’s Chinese embassy.
On Tuesday, Pavlou himself used his Twitter account to share mysterious, threatening emails in broken English he has received since the arrest, demanding that he cease all his activism against the human rights abuses of the Chinese regime.
Pavlou, 23, began his activism as a student leader of assemblies in Australia supporting the 2019 Hong Kong protests. He has since run for senate in his home country and expanded his protests to denounce not just the repression of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, but the Chinese state genocide of Uyghurs and other Muslim groups in East Turkistan, the erasure of indigenous culture in Tibet, and other human rights atrocities against individuals the Communist Party deems a threat to its supremacy.
He has been arrested on multiple occasions in Australia for holding protest banners with anti-regime messages, most prominently a peaceful protest featuring a sign reading “fuck Xi Jinping,” China’s genocidal dictator. On one occasion in May, Australian police detained Pavlou for holding up a blank piece of paper, claiming that, given his past activism, the blank sign was “causing anxiety to the public.”
London police arrested Pavlou this weekend over the email. The activist claimed that police denied him access to an attorney for nearly 24 hours, prohibited him from leaving the country, and threatened up to seven years in prison over the alleged threat. He does not face charges at press time, however, and has since retained an attorney and is seeking help to finance his involuntary stay in the United Kingdom.
Pavlou was in London to protest the Chinese government at the prestigious Wimbledon tennis tournament, where he was violently expelled from the men’s singles final after unfurling a banner in support of missing Chinese Wimbledon champion Peng Shuai. Peng disappeared from the public eye in November after publicly accusing a top Chinese government official of rape and has since only resurfaced under Communist Party custody, denying her own accusations and claiming, “I never disappeared.”
According to Pavlou, London police detained him after the Chinese Embassy claimed they had received an email reading, “This is Drew Pavlou today I will blow up the Embassy for Uyghurs – regards Drew.” The email came from the address “drewpavlou99@protonmail.me,” which Pavlou insists is not an address he has ever had access to.
Speaking to Australia’s ABC News in a report published Monday, Michael Polak, Pavlou’s attorney, directly accused the “Chinese state” of sending itself a bomb threat email to frame his client.
“This kind of thing happens all the time,” Polak stated. “As soon as activists and lawyers stand up and fight against the Chinese repressive regime – whether it’s on Hong Kong or the Uyghurs or Tibet, these kinds of fake emails start coming up.”
Pavlou himself lamented in the report that the email was “so clearly a forgery, a fake.”
The Australian government confirmed to ABC News that it had “offered consular assistance” to Pavlou in response to reports that U.K. officials had initially denied Pavlou access to his country’s diplomats. The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) stated that it would “raise Mr Pavlou’s claim that he was denied consular access before being released with UK authorities.”
On Tuesday, Pavlou shared alleged screencaps of emails he has since received from email addresses appearing to simulate his own, but not impersonating him – instead demanding he stop his activism against Beijing. He accused Communist Party “operatives” and “supporters” of sending them.
“You cannot criticise China and get away with it,” one such email allegedly read.
Pavlou has also published audio of what he claimed were voicemails left to him by unknown supporters of the Communist Party. The audio featured profanity-laced tirades by a man with a British accent warning that “the Party are coming for,” “the long arm of the Party” would silence him, and threatening violence under police custody.
“I hope they rape you to death in prison,” the man in one of the alleged voicemail messages says.
The arrest and subsequent threats continue a violent extended visit to the United Kingdom for the activist, whose attempt to raise the disappearance of a Wimbledon champion at Wimbledon resulted in security shoving him down a flight of stairs. The All England Club, which hosts the event, claimed that Pavlou was expelled from the final for, among other things, “running down the stairs,” but the ESPN live broadcast of the event clearly showed a guard shoving Pavlou.
Pavlou has long denounced threats similar to those that he claims to be receiving from email accounts impersonating himself in response to his human rights advocacy. During the 2019 pro-democracy Hong Kong movement, which Pavlou supported, then-university student Pavlou said he had received messages threatening to “kill his family.” At the time, pro-communist mobs had violently assaulted supporters of the Hong Kong movement on Australian campuses.
The Chinese consulate in Brisbane, Australia, celebrated the mob attacks at the time.
“The Anti-China protesters accused the Chinese government of violating human rights and asked the university to close its Confucius Institute, which provoked anger among Chinese onlookers,” the state-run Global Times described one campus scene at the time, noting that Pavlou had convened that protest. “In response to this protest, the patriotic students joined together and sang the Chinese national anthem as the conflict between two sides escalated into a physical clash. The University of Queensland campus security called police to the scene.”
The Global Times openly advocated for “anti-China rioter” Pavlou’s expulsion from the Australian University of Queensland. While China’s advocacy failed to result in a full suspension, Pavlou has not completed studies at press time partially due to the university punishing his anti-regime activities.
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