Grace Meng, wife of former Interpol President Meng Hongwei, began issuing a series of interviews last week, and most recently spoke to the Associated Press this weekend, urging the Chinese government to provide more information on her husband’s whereabouts and guarantee both of their safeties since Beijing admitted to arrested him early this month.
Meng disappeared on September 29 while on a trip to China from France, where he and his wife live and where Interpol’s headquarters are located. China’s Public Security Ministry announced on October 7 that authorities had arrested Meng, who spent decades in Chinese law enforcement before moving to Interpol, on charges of accepting bribes. Beijing has not confirmed to the outside world that Meng is alive or safe, however, and he has not been seen since the day he was reported missing.
Grace Meng told the Associated Press Saturday that Chinese authorities claimed to have a letter Meng had written her as proof of his wellbeing while detained. “They said my husband wrote a letter to me. They said they can only give it to me alone,” she noted.
The officials insisted, however, that she meet with them in private to receive it directly. Fearing for her safety, Meng says she has demanded to meet with an attorney and journalists present, or that the Chinese government hand over the letter to French police to give to her. She is reportedly awaiting a response.
She used her conversation with the AP to argue that, if the Chinese government can so swiftly apprehend the head of an international institution like Interpol, “everybody in China is at risk. Everyone should be concerned that something like this could happen to them.”
“The term anti-corruption in China has become a synonym for crimes that are unjustifiable,” she continued.
In a conversation with the BBC last week, she said she would begin speaking out publicly against the Chinese government in the hopes that public awareness could prevent them from arbitrarily arresting more people like they did her husband. “I don’t want any other wives and children like me,” she told the broadcast outlet.
Meng also spoke to CNN, reiterating her message from the BBC interview: “I do these things … for all of China’s children. For all of China’s wives.”
She added in her BBC interview that, in addition to official communications from the Chinese government, she had begun receiving threatening phone calls, including one that told her not to speak, only to listen that “two teams [are] target[ing] you in France.”
“I think it is political persecution. I’m not sure he’s alive. They are cruel. They are dirty. This thing shows it means they can do anything, I can’t imagine,” she lamented.
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