On Monday, the Metropolitan Police Service confirmed that no further action will be taken against human rights campaigner Drew Pavlou, who was arrested last July while protesting outside the Chinese Embassy in London. The 23-year-old Australian had been detained on suspicion of trespass on diplomatic premises, criminal damage, and communicating false information to make a bomb hoax. Pavlou vehemently denied the allegations and accused the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of “setting him up.”
The police spokesperson said that staff at the Chinese Embassy had alerted police to a bomb threat made by email on July 21, 2022. A man was detained at the embassy due to his suspicious behaviour, and was found to be in possession of a quantity of glue and had attempted to glue his hand to the outside of the embassy building. He was later released without further action and the investigation was closed.
Pavlou claimed he was holding a small and peaceful protest outside of the embassy when the police arrested him and his friend, who was identified only as ‘Harry’. He said the Chinese embassy forwarded an email to the police that purported to be from him, which said he would bomb the embassy in protest over the Chinese regime’s genocide of Uyghurs in China’s western Xinjiang province. Pavlou said he was held by UK police for 23 hours, and that he was denied access to a lawyer for more than 10 hours. He also said the police denied him access to Australian consular authorities.
Pavlou had been in the UK to highlight the disappearance of Chinese tennis player, Peng Shuai. He had staged a protest at Wimbledon wearing T-shirts reading: “Where Is Peng Shuai?” On July 10, 2022, Pavlou was kicked out of Wimbledon’s Centre Court by security after shouting and holding up a banner in the stands during the men’s singles final. British human rights advocate Benedict Rogers praised Pavlou as “a totally peaceful young man who heroically devotes his energies to highlighting” the human rights atrocities in Xinjiang and Tibet, the dismantling of Hong Kong’s freedoms, and CCP repression.
The Metropolitan Police Service has confirmed that no further action will be taken against human rights campaigner Drew Pavlou after his arrest in July 2022. Pavlou, a vocal critic of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was detained on suspicion of trespass on diplomatic premises, criminal damage, and communicating false information to make a bomb hoax. He has now been fully cleared of any wrongdoing, with a police spokesperson telling The Epoch Times via email that no further action will be taken against him. Pavlou had been protesting outside the Chinese Embassy in London to highlight the Chinese regime’s human rights abuses against the Tibetans, the Uyghur people, and Hongkongers, as well as the disappearance of Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai. British human rights advocate Benedict Rogers praised Pavlou as “a totally peaceful young man who heroically devotes his energies to highlighting” the CCP’s repression.