Beijing demands an apology over ‘brutal abuse’ of three Chinese tourists by police in Stockholm 
 
 A disagreement between Chinese tourists and a hostel in Stockholm over check-in time has turned into a diplomatic spat between China and Sweden, after Beijing criticised Sweden for violating the human rights of Chinese citizens. 
 
 China has demanded an apology from Sweden and issued a safety alert for its tourists in the country after it said that three tourists had been “brutally abused” by Swedish police on 2 September. 
 
 The Zengs, a family of three, had arrived at a hostel in Stockholm around midnight, hours before their booking. They were allowed to wait in the lobby until the staff ordered them to leave and police forcibly ejected them. 
 
 Bizarre video footage posted online shows police carrying the group outside, while the son yells in English: “This is killing. This is killing.” Another clip shows the three lying on the ground crying loudly while the mother wails in Chinese: “Save me.” 
 
 The Chinese embassy in Sweden said on Saturday that China’s ministry of foreign affairs and the embassy had “made solemn representations” to the Swedish government “stressing that what the police had done severely endangered the life and violated the basic human rights of the Chinese citizens.” 
 
 The incident comes as ties between China and Sweden have come under pressure. The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who Beijing considers a violent separatist, visited Sweden last week, and China continues to hold Gui Minhai, a Chinese-born Swedish citizen and book publisher, in custody. 
 
 Sweden condemns China's 'brutal' detention of bookseller Gui Minhai Read more 
 
 News of the altercation has attracted widespread attention in China where the search term “Chinese tourists mistreated by Swedish police” has received more than 130m views and 85,000 posts on the microblog Weibo. Discussion of the incident has turned into a debate about the behaviour of Chinese tourists at home and abroad. 
 
 “This is shameful. The image of China has been disgraced in the hands of these people,” one Weibo user wrote. 
 
 “The Dalai Lama visits Sweden and the foreign ministry uses this incident as a pretext to make a fuss. That’s more embarrassing than the performance of this family,” another wrote. 
 
 “These people feel the world should move around them, if not, then they lie down on ground and scream for help,” one commentator wrote in an essay posted on WeChat. 
 
 Zeng told the Global Times he had asked the hostel to let his parents, who are elderly with health problems, stay until their room was available. The staff refused and called police to remove them. 
 
 “I broke down and lost my mind,” Zeng said. “I was not able to think whether it was appropriate or not. I just wanted to denounce the police and seek help from pedestrians.” 
 
 A manager at the hostel told Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet, the family had arrived the day before their booking and refused to leave. The hostel said staff called police sometime after midnight, when the tourists began to make verbal threats. 
 
 “We only know that we have done everything we could do for this guest, but at the same time we cannot accept that our staff are exposed to threats and that other guests will suffer from a threatening situation,” the hostel manager said, according to Aftonbladet. 
 
 
 
 Additional reporting by Wang Xueying 
 
 
 
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 This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. ||||| BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Monday urged Sweden to take seriously its concern over the removal by police of three Chinese citizens from a hotel in Stockholm, after the incident sparked uproar on Chinese social media and an unusually strong response from Beijing. 
 
 Police forcibly ejected a Chinese man surnamed Zeng and his parents from a hotel in Stockholm in the early hours of Sept. 2 after they arrived a day before their booking and were asked to leave, according to Chinese state media. 
 
 China has lodged representations with Sweden about the incident and has asked for an immediate response to the complaint, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular briefing. 
 
 “We again urge Sweden to take China’s concerns seriously, and to take practical measures to protect the security and legitimate interests of Chinese tourists,” he said. 
 
 Sweden had not yet responded to China’s requests for an update on the investigation, which was not in accord with diplomatic convention, Geng added. 
 
 Swedish prosecutor Mats Ericsson told the Aftonbladet daily that no preliminary investigation had been initiated because “we made the assessment that no crime on the part of the police had been committed”. 
 
 A Swedish government source, who declined to be identified, said Sweden believed that China was exaggerating the incident because Sweden had spoken out over the case of a Swedish citizen detained in China. 
 
 “We think it’s related to Gui Minhai,” said the Swedish government source, referring to a Swedish, Hong Kong-based bookseller who has been held by Chinese authorities since 2015 after he was abducted in Thailand. 
 
 “Sweden and the EU have repeatedly called for his release and Chinese authorities don’t like that.” 
 
 An official newspaper of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Daily Overseas Edition, earlier accused Sweden of hypocrisy. 
 
 “Some Western nations, including Sweden, always praise themselves for their human rights, freedom and equality. But when it comes to China’s people and issues, they seem to often show a different face, a different set of standards.” 
 
 A video clip of the tourists wailing and crying as they sat on the ground outside the hotel door has drawn mixed reactions from Chinese internet users. 
 
 Some blamed the Swedish police for mistreating the tourists, but many lambasted the travelers, saying their behavior was unseemly and embarrassing. 
 
 “I really find these types of people too infuriating. Could they please not make a spectacle of themselves and give the motherland some face?” said one user wrote on the Weibo social media platform.
– Sometimes, arriving early for your hotel check-in results in scoring a bed ahead of schedule. And sometimes it leads to an international incident. The latter is true of a bizarre incident in Stockholm involving three Chinese tourists—an older couple and their grown son, reports the Guardian. The three arrived very early, apparently the night before their scheduled check-in at a facility described variously as a hostel or a hotel. The two sides differ on exactly what happened next—the hotel says the tourists became belligerent and threatened staff, while the son says he merely wanted the hotel to allow his elderly parents to wait in the lobby—but the upshot is that police came and carried the group outside. See them lying on the sidewalk here. “This is killing, this is killing," the son yells in English. "Save me," says his mother. The video soon took off on social media platforms in China, with many users outraged at the treatment. Others thought the family embarrassed China. Beijing's foreign ministry sided with the former camp, and a spokesman at China's embassy in Sweden said police "severely endangered the life and violated the basic human rights of the Chinese citizens.” A state newspaper, the People's Daily, has accused Sweden of being hypocritical in calling out human rights issues elsewhere, notes Reuters. So far, Swedish government officials haven't deemed the incident worthy of an investigation, with one anonymous official accusing China of exaggerating things because Sweden recently spoke out against the detention of a Swedish citizen, Gui Minhai, in China. (Another international incident took place at an Italian fountain.)