It has been a year since Dahlin became one of the first foreign victims of President Xi Jinping’s war on dissent. On 3 January 2016 Chinese security agents encircled the activist’s Beijing home and spirited him and his Chinese girlfriend, Pan Jinling, off to a covert interrogation centre he now calls “The Residence”. Months have now passed but the memories of that spell in custody have proved hard to shake. “These facilities are built to break you,” the campaigner says during a seven-hour interview at a home in Chiang Mai, a city in northern Thailand where he and Pan have lived since he was deported from China amidone of the most severe crackdowns in decades. Read more
