For at least ten years, the Chinese Communist Party has been abducting its overseas citizens on EU territory and forcibly returning them to China - violating the rule of law and public security in Europe - a new report finds.
Full report: https://safeguarddefenders.com/sites/default/files/pdf/Chasing%20Fox%20Hunt.pdf
Archived version: https://archive.ph/lEYCn
EDIT: The discussion shifted to off-topic and insults. Post locked.
Ah, makes sense. I'd look more at the U.S. drone assassination program and its (actual) kidnapping and torture operations. That's the best comparison to what this report alleges.
Well, I don't appreciate the implication that the time I was in the wrong place at the wrong time so I got forced into the back of a stranger's car at gunpoint and driven 30 minutes to the stranger's HQ where I was then locked in a room and interrogated doesn't count as "abduction" or "kidnapping"
I mean, that wasn't an abuction or kidnapping. There are countless actions that are legal when the government does them but criminal if done by a private citizen. In many cases there's probable cause to make an arrest, but the person is later cleared, which sounds like it happened to you. That doesn't make the arrest illegal, much less kidnapping.
This isn't a technical point, either. Mischaracterizing lawful government conduct as criminal is exactly what this report is attempting to do, and we shouldn't do it ourselves.
It was exactly both of those things, and I don't understand why you are the second person to reply to me under the mistaken impression that abduction and kidnapping are only possible when they are done illegally. Where are you getting this nonsense from?
The law. Yes, abduction and kidnapping are only possible when they are done illegally. Illegality is a crucial part of what those terms mean.
You're essentially making the libertarian "tax is theft" argument: it would be criminal if I did it to you, so it must be criminal when the government does it to you.
No dude, it isn't. At all. You literally have it backwards. The law uses these terms because they are English terms with meanings. The law doesn't give them their meanings.
Non-legal definitions of those terms also imply illegality. There is no legal way to kidnap someone.
There are a wide variety of legal ways to kidnap someone. Such as the one I described which happened to me.
How is this logic different from the article's? You're both calling a legal arrest you don't like "kidnapping."
See also: a libertarian saying "of course you can legally steal, it's called taxes!"