by Ganesh Sahathevan
.........the Australian Emergency Assistance Association Incorporated (AEAAI), acts as a middleman in police incidents and legal cases involving Chinese speakers.
The association has promoted itself as a grassroots community platform to its more than 55,000 members from the Chinese diaspora in Australia on the Chinese social media platform WeChat.
It has more than 1,000 volunteers who promise to race to the scene of incidents across Australia in a matter of minutes.
According to confidential documents obtained by the ABC, the AEAAI was promised funding from the consulate and agreed to report back on criminal incidents, emergencies, accidents and "security risks" involving Chinese citizens deemed to require consular assistance.
The AEAAI was promoted publicly by (Federal Member Of Parliament) Gladys Liu (no relation), who has close links to Mr Liu.
Ms Liu helped the 52-year-old develop a relationship with Victoria Police and, by Haha Liu's account, translated for him at events with MPs and business leaders.
He also watched from the public gallery in the House of Representatives as Ms Liu delivered her maiden speech in July 2019 as MP for the federal seat of Chisholm in Melbourne's east.
Malaysians and Indonesians will recognise the Australian Emergency Assistance Association Incorporated as a form of their very own Rukun Tetangga neighbourhood watch schemes. No such scheme run by a foreign government, let alone the Communist Party Of China, is known to exist anywhere else in this region. Australia is fast becoming the country most infiltrated by the Communist Party Of China in this region. That makes it a regional threat The current political leadership, and leadership of the defence and security agencies, seem to have forgotten that Australian troops were called upon to defend Malaya from the Communist Party China backed Malayan Communist Party during the Malayan Emergency, which only ended in the 1980s.
END
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WeChat app brings neighbourhood watch to Chinese community
By Anna Hartley
Posted TueTuesday 22 OctOctober 2019 at 6:49am, updated TueTuesday 22 OctOctober 2019 at 12:01pm
The SOS-AUS group on the popular Chinese social media app WeChat has about 50,000 members.(ABC News: Anna Hartley)Share
阅读中文版本
For most people in Australia triple-0 is their first and only point of call in an emergency, but tens of thousands of Chinese-speaking residents are using social media groups to get help when they fear for their safety.
Key points:
Police have urged WeChat users to contact the proper authorities in an emergency
Liaison officers in Sunnybank have their own WeChat account
Police say WeChat has benefitted police investigations
It has prompted one expert to warn people against taking the law into their own hands.
Chinese social media app WeChat — used by 2.5 million Australians — has allowed some groups to take the concept of neighbourhood watch online.
When Brisbane woman Layla Chen was woken in the middle of the night by a loud bang and thought there was an intruder downstairs, she called police.
She also posted the emergency on her local 2,500-strong WeChat neighbourhood group — Queensland Danger-Rescue Neighbourhood Watch.
"I just called my mum straight away because she was in another bedroom, and she said she heard it as well, so we just kept quiet," she said.
"I was no nervous because my daughter was beside me, I was just so worried."
Layla Chen and Johnson Zhang were strangers when he helped her through their local WeChat group.(ABC News: Anna Hartley)Johnson Zhang lived nearby, saw the message and got to the Kuraby home within minutes.
"After she opened the door I said, 'you stay in the bedroom and I will check around your home to see if anyone is hiding somewhere'," he said.
Mr Zhang didn't find anyone inside, but his search helped Ms Chen feel better.
"He checked around the house as well, so I felt very secure," she said.
The police said they also checked outside the home and found no sign of forced entry.
Expert warns against vigilante behaviour
Dr Suzanna Lay from the University of Queensland is an expert on crime, immigration, and neighbourhood action and said while social media groups could be beneficial, people should not take the law into their own hands.
"It is great the leaders [of WeChat groups] are saying 'we don't encourage people to do put themselves in danger or act as vigilantes', but reality is sometimes social media takes a life of its own if it's not put in check," she said.
Jun Yu runs a Queensland-based 2,500 people strong WeChat support group.(ABC News: Anna Hartley)"One of the things social media group founders can do is make sure community chats or Facebook pages have good admins who ensure people in the community are moderated to make sure things don't get out of hand."
Police have also warned against reporting crimes on social media.
Dr Lay said there was a growing trend of neighbourhood watch groups moving to a digital space, whether that be on WeChat, Facebook or other social media platforms.
"We used to have a lot of physical neighbourhood watch groups and a lot of that is now online, it's not just WeChat there's a range of social media pages," she said.
"When they are used in communities to support someone in trouble that's a good thing, but if we are reporting a crime that results in vigilantism where people go out and try to take action on their own, that's concerning.
Senior Sergeant Simon Mortimer and Senior PLO Ken Rong in Sunnybank Plaza engaging with the local Chinese community.(ABC News: Anna Hartley)"I've seen this on some Facebook groups, people jump to conclusions on who the perpetrator of a crime is and it's not always true, what that means is it runs a risk of isolating or excluding individuals within that community," Dr Lay said.
"These groups can be helpful for communities that are linguistically isolated and that is important. It's not realistic or beneficial to say 'stay away from these social media groups completely'.
"Let's understand the benefits and risks and try to mitigate those risks."
A type of online 'neighbourhood watch'
Tens of thousands of people have joined similar WeChat groups around Australia in recent years.
One of the largest nation-wide online neighbourhood watch groups is SOS-AUS, known as AEAAI, founded by Melbourne man Huifeng Liu in 2016.
It has 50,000 members and Mr Liu said he expects that figure to double in the next three years.
"A lot of people who have just arrived in Australia as migrants don't know the country well, have difficulties with language, don't have friends or family nearby so it's important to help those people, especially when crime happens," he said.
In 2016 Melbourne man Huifeng Liu founded one of the largest nation-wide online neighbourhood watch groups.(ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser)"Initially the group was started because we thought the concept of neighbourhood watch was good, but it's a bit out-of-date so we decided to put it online for the Chinese community.
"This organisation is an online neighbourhood watch to help people report crime and communicate with the appropriate authorities like police."
Mr Liu said SOS-AUS and other similar WeChat groups did not encourage vigilantism.
"Safety is our top priority," he said.
"In situations of serious crime, we advise volunteers not to go onto the site but be a witness to tell the police what happened."
From missing relatives and burglaries to car crashes or scams, those in trouble post their emergency and location in their relevant WeChat neighbourhood watch group and other members nearby come to help.
"Generally speaking volunteers will be able to reach any person in 10 minutes," Mr Liu said.
Gold Coast woman Vivian Zhang has been a member of SOS-AUS since it started in Queensland.
Last year she helped a man who was bitten by a tick and didn't know what to do.
Senior Police Liaison Officer Ken Rong said WeChat had also benefitted police investigations.(ABC News: Anna Hartley)"He needed medical attention because the insect was still on his skin and was drilling in, he felt very scared," she said.
"After I received this notification I rushed him to the Griffith University Hospital. I was happy to help."
Police urge users to call authorities in emergency
RMIT researcher Dr Haiqing Yu, who is studying Chinese digital media in Australia, said the WeChat neighbourhood watch concept had grown rapidly over recent years.
"This is the main platform where people share information about emergency situations, seek help when they are in trouble and volunteers will also organise patrols on the streets," she said.
Dr Yu said more authorities should embrace the platform.
"The volunteers of SOS-AUS have been community members for a long time so that trust is ingrained," she said.
"[Police] having a public account and constantly updating information to connect with the Chinese community is great but they also need foot soldiers in other WeChat groups to repost whatever they have done, that would increase the impact."
Queensland police have their own WeChat account.(ABC News)Police said while the support groups could be useful for preventive messaging and post-crime support, they urged people to contact proper authorities to report any crime or emergency.
In the Brisbane suburb of Sunnybank, where more than one third of people speak Mandarin or Cantonese, Chinese-speaking police liaison officers have started their own WeChat account.
Senior Police Liaison Officer Ken Rong said their WeChat presence had also benefitted police, with an increase in witness reports following crimes in the Sunnybank area.
"The feedback has been very positive," he said.
"I think it's a great project and we hope more people subscribe to get accurate information."
Read The Story In Chinese: 阅读中文版本
Posted 22 OctOctober 2019, updated 22 OctOctober 2019
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