The Catholic Weekly 14 June 2020

catholicweekly.com.au 12 NEWS 14, June, 2020 FEATURE This is a different case from the one contesting Drew’s expulsion from the University of Queensland, right? YES. ON 14 October 2019, Drew Pavlou filed an applica- tion for a “Peace & Good Be- haviour Order,” a type of re- straining order, against PRC Brisbane Consul-General Xu Jie at the Brisbane Magistrates Court, and lodged an organ- ised crime complaint against the Consul-General with the Queensland Police on 30 Oc- tober, 2019. The Hearing is listed for 24 July 2020. Why these actions by a 20-year-old student against a diplomat representing a powerful country? ON 24 July 2019, a small group of University of Queensland student activists, peaceful- ly advocating on campus for Hong Kong democracy and Uyghur and Tibetan rights, were surrounded, accord- ing to Queensland Police es- timates, by 500-600 “neo Red Guards” before being vicious- ly attacked, spearheaded by CCP operatives. The following day, T he Global Times carried [Chi- nese] Brisbane Consul-Gen- eral Xu Jie’s statement prais- ing the “patriotic” attacks on the pro-democracy students and named two of the stu- dent leaders including Drew Pavlou, describing him as an “Australian national” whilst the other student leader’s “nationality has yet to be con- firmed.” Mr Pavlou immedi- ately received hundreds of death threats. He regards the Consul-General as responsi- ble. What is your view of The Global Times? PROFESSOR GEREMIE Bar- mé, an expert witness in Drew Pavlou’s case against the Con- sul-General, describes The Global Times as a “mouth- piece of the official line of the Chinese Communists.” He says that, with its “in- flammatory rhetoric and dou- ble-think approach to report- ing and commenting both on Chinese society and global affairs” The Global Times is “somewhat reminiscent of Der Stürmer , the infamous yet influential German prop- aganda newspaper published by Julius Streicher from the 1920s until the collapse of the Nazi regime at the end of the Second World War.” You have proposed a comparison between the CCP regime in China and the Nazi regime in Germany. This seems quite strong. Can you explain? The People’s Republic of Chi- na’s similarity with the Third Reich does not end with Der Stürmer . The PRC’s crimes of today are in-step with the 1946–47 Nuremberg Military Indictments against members of the former Nazi regime. Telford Taylor, the US’s Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, in presenting the in- dictments in Nuremberg ex- plained how the Third Reich’s pre-war commercial and in- dustrial activities “were care- fully designed to weaken the US as an arsenal of democra- cy” by retarding “the produc- tion within the US of certain strategic products,” including sulfur drugs, precursors to modern antibiotics. Using nefarious business practices almost identical to those of pre-war Nazi Ger- many, the PRC now controls most of the world’s strategic products, and infiltrates dem- ocratic countries via Huawei. One can even believe that the CCP has studied the pre- war strategies of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and made them its own. As TelfordTaylor explained, “The criminal programs of the SS were so widespread and conducted on such a gigantic scale that they were a mat- ter of common knowledge throughout Germany and throughout the world.” Yet few Using nefarious business practices almost identical to those of pre-war Nazi Germany, the PRC now con- trols most of the world’s strategic products, and infiltrates democratic countries via Huawei.” This is one of a number of internment camps in the Xinjiang region. A classified blueprint leaked to news organisations shows the camps as F\forced re-education centres. PHOTO: PLANET LABS VIA AP, FILE The Party’s baneful influence in Australia Lawyer Mark Tarrant represents pro bono University of Queensland student Drew Pavlou, in his case against China’s Consul-General in Brisbane. Drew was also suspended by UQ for two years in May for his criticisms of the Chinese Communist Party ¾ ¾ Massimo Introvigne