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washington [US]May 14 (ABC): A Boston man has been arrested and charged with spying for the Chinese government for years by sharing information on local pro-democracy dissidents, USA TODAY cites federal prosecutors as saying.
From 2018 to 2022, 63-year-old Liang Litang was suspected of cooperating with Chinese officials to monitor dissidents in Boston, according to a statement released Friday by the U.S. District Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
Liang, a U.S. citizen living in Brighton, Boston, organized a counterprotest against pro-democracy dissidents and provided Chinese government officials with “photographs of the dissidents,” prosecutors said in the indictment. and information”.
Litang Liang was charged with one count of acting as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. attorney general and one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. attorney general.
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Leung allegedly provided information about people and organizations with “pro-Taiwanese knowledge” in the Boston area. According to news reports, he is accused of using documents to inform Chinese officials of the identities of people Liang claimed had “vandalized” the Chinese flag during protests in Boston’s Chinatown in 2018.
He allegedly provided video of one dissident at a “Boston Stands with Hong Kong” rally in August 2019 and others in front of the Boston Public Library in September 2019, according to news reports. Photos of dissidents.
In an email to Chinese officials, Liang described the people he took pictures of in front of the library as “a bunch of clowns trying to cause trouble,” USA Today reported, citing an indictment.
He even used the phone and the WeChat app to contact Chinese officials, including diplomats, the Ministry of Public Security and other agencies that reported to the Chinese Communist Party, according to the indictment.
According to news reports, the indictment said Liang’s actions were intended to “act at the direction or control of the (People’s Republic of China) government in order to covertly advance the goals and agenda of the government of the People’s Republic of China in the United States.”
Litang Liang was arrested on Tuesday and released on Thursday on $25,000 bond on the condition that he not travel abroad or communicate with any Chinese officials. Earlier this year, China was accused of interfering with democracy activists in the United States.
In April, the U.S. Justice Department announced charges against Chinese security officials for allegedly acting as proxies for Beijing to censor dissidents in the U.S., USA Today reported. The pair were charged with operating an illegal Chinese government overseas police station in lower Manhattan. (Arnie)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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