Beijing [China], September 25 : A Canadian citizen who spent 1,000 days in Chinese detention called the experience nothing less than psychological torture that he won't forget. The victim was detained on spying charges by Chinese authorities and returned home in 2021, CNN reported.
Canadian resident Michael Kovrig, one of two Canadian citizens detained by China for more than 1,000 days on spying allegations described, that he was put in solitary confinement for six months and was continuously interrogated, which according to him was psychological torture, as per CNN report.
"It was psychologically, absolutely, the most gruelling, painful thing I've ever been through," Kovrig said in his first remarks given to a Canadian news organisation CBC after being released from Chinese prison three years ago, CNN reported.
Kovrig also said that he was held in complete isolation in a cell under fluorescent lights for six months which was a total contravention of UN standards. He was interrogated for 6 to 9 hours daily, locked in a chair for hours on end, and was forced to survive on three bowls of rice per day.
"They are trying to bully and torment and terrorise and coerce you into accepting their false version of reality," Kovrig told CNN.
The CNN report also claimed that the Canadian citizen had become embroiled in a three-year diplomatic tussle that began in 2021 when Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei, in Vancouver on US fraud charges. Kovrig was only freed after US prosecutors dropped the extradition request and agreed to release Meng, nearly two years later.
During Kovrig's detention, Chinese authorities continuously denied any connection between the arrests of Meng and Kovrig. Additionally, the Chinese officials did not even publicly disclose evidence against Kovrig, or detailed information relating to their trials, which were held behind closed doors.
Kovrig, who was a former diplomat working as a senior advisor for the International Crisis Group think tank. He was reportedly walking back home with his partner after dinner in Beijing on December 10, 2018. His partner at that time was six months pregnant when he was seized by Chinese authorities.
According to the CNN report, Kovrig recalled, "We came up a spiral staircase right in front of the plaza in front of my apartment building, and boom. There's a dozen men in black with cameras on them surrounding us, shouting in Chinese, "That's him."
The news report of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on Kovrig was quoted in the CNN report in which he had said that during his arrest he was handcuffed, blindfolded, and thrown into a black SUV, then taken to a padded cell that would be his home for the next six months.