Former student of Justice Institute of BC, Chen Zhichen, has been charged by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for orchestrating an online network of harassment against American residents who oppose the Chinese Communist Party. Among the 34 Ministry of Public Security (MPS) officers charged, Chen is a member of the MPS First Bureau, China’s secret police agency, responsible for suppressing free speech against the PRC government and spreading pro-CCP propaganda. Chen was a leader of an online “troll farm” that targeted Chinese nationals residing in America who expressed opposition to the CCP on key issues that the authoritarian regime is attempting to suppress.
Chen is charged with acting in the role of a Group team leader, regularly leading shifts of Group officers who posted, monitored, and updated content on various social media platforms, including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Chen and the other Group members attempted to influence perceptions on issues sensitive to the PRC government and targeted dissidents and critics of the CCP, including through threats and harassment, according to the indictment filed in a New York federal district court.
Chen attended JIBC for coursework on the Canadian judicial system, including an overview of the Canadian justice system and comparative international justice systems. Between 2014 and 2020, the institute welcomed over a dozen Chinese police academies, as part of a burgeoning international law enforcement studies program, which took in $3.3 million from the academies that fall under MPS direction.
Concerns were raised within the Canadian law enforcement and Chinese diaspora communities that the program constituted a risk to national security, and the program was subsequently shut down in 2021 after JIBC board members expressed similar concerns. Chen’s link to JIBC was discovered by the Found in Translation Substack website, dedicated to linking CCP- and PRC-connected activity in Canada and the United States to Chinese state media reports.
The charges against Chen and other MPS officers highlight the Chinese government’s deployment of an elite task force of its national police—the 912 Special Project Working Group—to attack Chinese dissidents in the US for exercising free speech in a manner that the PRC government disfavors and spread disinformation and propaganda to sow divisions within the United States, according to United States Attorney Breon Peace.