Violent attack at Manchester Chinese Consulate a grim reminder of the fragility of free speech 

You may think you live in a free country. Some foreign governments would disagree. 

Authoritarian countries like China, Turkey, and Russia are trying to export their brand of oppression around the world. And they’re succeeding. 

Just this weekend we received another reminder that freedom of speech isn’t safe even in free countries when violence broke out after dozens of demonstrators supporting Hong Kong’s protest movement congregated outside of the Chinese consulate in Manchester. 

For the tens of thousands of individuals who left the increasingly stifling environment in Hong Kong for the UK in the past two years, it’s also a warning that even though they’ve fled China’s repression, it can still follow them abroad.

Among the posters demonstrators displayed advocating for Hong Kong independence, one image especially appeared to provoke outrage within the consulate, which called the picture “insulting.” It depicted President Xi Jinping dressed like a king in the reflection of a mirror but in reality wearing only boxers and a crown, a clear allusion to Hans Christian Andersen’s classic “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” The protesters’ reference to a fable in which people are afraid to speak critical truth about their leader proved particularly apt given what soon followed. 

Consular staff in bulletproof vests reportedly rushed out of the grounds, vandalized some of the protesters’ signs, and dragged one of the demonstrators onto the consular grounds and assaulted him. Greater Manchester Police, who intervened to rescue the demonstrator from the attackers, reported that he “suffered several physical injuries and remained in hospital overnight for treatment.” Members of Parliament quickly demanded an investigation, and police promise one is underway. 

This violence is unacceptable. It must be condemned and punished appropriately. 

But while the attack is shocking, it isn’t exactly surprising. After all, it’s been only four years since U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi stepped into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, never to walk back out.

A Chinese student was sentenced to prison when he returned home over tweets he had posted mocking Xi Jinping while at the University of Minnesota.

In recent years, authoritarians have grown more savvy—and more brazen—about enforcing their own censorship policies overseas, including in countries like the United States, regardless of local protections for freedom of expression. In the case of Saudi Arabia’s outrageous recent sentencing of a U.S. citizen for tweets he posted years ago while at home in Florida, they may wait for opportunities to punish speakers who engaged in legal expression in free countries.

Authoritarian governments should be condemned for the rights violations they inflict upon their own people. But we also must be vigilant about their efforts to inflict those violations across other countries’ borders — including our own.

The Manchester Chinese consular officials’ behavior may look familiar to Americans, who in 2017 witnessed an all-out assault against peaceful protesters, including children, outside of the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington, D.C., by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security team. Some of the assaulted individuals sustained injuries, including concussions and knocked out teeth, as Erdogan watched on. Nearly twenty people were indicted over the attacks, but within a year, charges against more than half of the individuals were quietly dropped.

For too long, free countries have allowed this threat to simmer under the surface and now its ugly consequences are too obvious to be ignored. 

The Turkish government’s attack on Americans’ right to speak was blatant, but efforts from Chinese officials are the most pervasive. Just months ago, a federal grand jury indicted five individuals, including two current and former Department of Homeland Security officers, for their involvement in schemes to surveil and censor U.S.-based critics of the Chinese Communist Party.

And while outright violence is fortunately not widespread on American college campuses, they are often the epicenter of efforts to control what’s said about China abroad. At the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, where I work, I have followed the uptick in efforts by students, administrators, and Chinese officials to censor and silence campus critics of China. 

A Chinese student was sentenced to prison when he returned home over tweets he had posted mocking Xi Jinping while at the University of Minnesota. At institutions including the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Chinese consular officials have demanded administrators cancel speaking invitations to the Dalai Lama and Taiwanese politicians. State media and nationalists harassed a Chinese student who praised “the fresh air of free speech” at a University of Maryland commencement address. Students from the University of Chicago’s ​​Chinese Students and Scholars Association demanded exiled Hong Kong activist and politician Nathan Law be disinvited from a campus program, claiming he “falls outside the purviews of free speech.”

As citizens of unfree countries around the world can attest, once freedom of speech has been ceded away, it’s nearly impossible to restore.

And in February, the president of George Washington University even temporarily threatened to investigate and unmask students who posted artwork highlighting China’s human rights violations ahead of the Beijing 2022 Olympics, after some student groups claimed it “insulted China” and demanded punishment of the students involved. Weeks ago, anonymous Chinese students papered the same campus with flyers calling on George Washington University’s administration to protect them from efforts to silence Chinese dissidents, including their peers on campus. Many of the posters were quickly torn down.

When even the United States cannot provide a safe environment for dissenters to speak freely about authoritarian governments, all of us have a problem. 

For too long, free countries have allowed this threat to simmer under the surface and now its ugly consequences are too obvious to be ignored. Whether it occurs in Manchester or Washington, we must respond swiftly and decisively to authoritarian efforts to censor and silence dissent overseas. 

As citizens of unfree countries around the world can attest, once freedom of speech has been ceded away, it’s nearly impossible to restore.