Three Danish political parties have called for a government probe into China’s repression campaign against dissidents living in the Nordic country following the China Targets investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the Danish newspaper Politiken and 41 other media outlets.

Lawmakers from the Unity List, the Danish People’s Party and The Alternative said they want to know how widespread Beijing’s targeting of political dissidents and members of oppressed minorities is and what authorities intend to do about it, Politiken reported.

Morten Messerschmidt, the leader of the right-wing Danish People’s Party, told Politiken that China Targets had unmasked the true face of the Chinese regime and said that, for too long, European politicians have turned a blind eye to its transnational repression.

“China successfully keeps its own population in a totalitarian iron grip, and they have a fundamental ambition to do the same with the rest of the world,” Messerschmidt said.

He described China as a “bully” state that Western countries had emboldened economically and militarily “through an extreme degree of naivety.”

China Targets uncovered the pressure tactics the Chinese government uses to silence and intimidate its critics abroad, including through proxies and professional hackers.

ICIJ and its media partners examined internal government documents and interviewed 105 transnational repression targets living in 23 countries, including Hong Kong and Taiwan independence advocates and members of Tibetan and Uyghur minorities.

Half of the victims said that members of their families in China and Hong Kong had been intimidated and interrogated by police or state security officials. In several cases, the alleged intimidation came just hours after they had participated in protests or public events overseas. Sixty victims believed they had been followed or were being surveilled in their adopted country.

Lhagyari Namgyal Dolkar, a member of the Tibetan government in exile, told Politiken during a recent visit to Denmark that many activists overseas have stopped their advocacy, fearing their families back home could be harmed or imprisoned.

“We are seeing fewer and fewer protests from Tibetans around the world, especially those who have family in Tibet, choosing to remain silent, to censor themselves,” Dolkar said.

‘A huge responsibility’

As part of China Targets, ICIJ partners Politiken and the Göteborgs-Posten, a Swedish daily, investigated the case of Chinese human rights activist Liu Dongling.

Liu fled China with her teenage son in 2018 after local officials harassed her for opposing the demolition of her house and village in Henan province. After arriving in Denmark in 2022, they were placed in a center for people seeking asylum in a small southern town, while authorities processed their political asylum claim. But even at the center, Liu and her son did not feel safe after unknown Chinese men approached them, she told reporters.

She said one of the men greeted her in a shop with the words: “Now I found you.”

While in Denmark, Dongling became a spokesperson for a campaign to end China’s internet censorship called “Ban the Great Firewall.” She began leading the organization after the campaign’s founder, a journalist, suddenly disappeared in Laos in 2023 and was later arrested in China on charges of subversion.

According to Politiken, Danish authorities later rejected Liu’s asylum application on the grounds that she had not demonstrated she would be at risk of persecution if she returned to China.

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Liu and her son then moved to an undisclosed location in Sweden, but, even there, she has faced online abuse. A U.S.-based Chinese social media influencer posted videos accusing Liu of being a Chinese spy and repeatedly emailed Danish authorities with the same allegations. A Chinese website linked to covert influence operations has labeled her a “traitor” and published her private information. “It’s really scary,” Liu told the Göteborgs-Posten.

The Göteborgs-Posten documented over 20 occasions when Liu was subjected to various forms of pressure or harassment. In some cases, the threats were clearly made by Chinese authorities.

“Even if you have fled China and are living in another country, the Chinese state is still watching you,” Danish lawmaker Rosa Lund, a member of the left-wing Unity List, told Politiken. “It doesn’t surprise me, but it’s scary. It’s about basic democratic human rights, and we have a huge responsibility in Europe to defend them,” Lund said.

“These are really scary stories,” she added.

China Targets also showed how, since Chinese President Xi Jinping rose to power, the United Nations in Geneva has become a staging ground for China’s transnational repression — and how Chinese authorities abuse Interpol red notices for political ends.

Even if you have fled China and are living in another country, the Chinese state is still watching you.

— Rosa Lund, a member of Danish political party Unity List 

In response to comment requests from ICIJ and its media partners, representatives of Chinese embassies in 11 countries said that the allegations of transnational repression are fabricated and intended to smear China.

In Denmark, the investigation has sparked concern across the political spectrum. Messerschmidt, Lund and Helene Brydensholt, a lawmaker with the left-wing Alternative party, told Politiken they want a government inquiry into the scale and scope of China’s transnational repression on Danish soil — similar to probes recently undertaken by other European governments.

In its 2024 report on human rights and democracy, the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs called for a coordinated response from members of the European Union to transnational repression by “illiberal regimes,” including China.

Switzerland investigated China’s oppression of Tibetans and Uyghurs living in the country and concluded earlier this year that transnational repression is a threat to democracy, likening it to terrorism, because it erodes freedom of expression and other rights. In the United Kingdom, a government committee recently heard testimony from experts and victims as part of an ongoing inquiry into the issue.

“Of course, it is deeply problematic that citizens in Denmark experience being controlled and have their freedom of expression and human rights violated by foreign regimes,” Brydensholt told Politiken. “We politicians must take this issue very seriously.”