According to an Amnesty International report from May 2024, PRC affiliates surveilled, intimidated and harassed Chinese students studying in North America and Europe who participated in protests critical of the CCP, such as commemorations of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre or the White Paper Movement, between 2018 and 2023. The report was based on interviews with Chinese students in the Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Interviewees explained that protesting students used masks to conceal their identity from agents of the PRC government. Those agents, which included students who were hired to spy on their classmates, frequented and surveilled the protests, photographing attendees and reporting them to PRC authorities. Several students reported that, within hours of attending protests abroad, PRC security officials contacted their parents in mainland China, threatening to revoke the parents’ passports, get them fired, prevent any future promotions, cut retirement benefits, or outright restrain their physical freedom. PRC authorities demanded that parents cut financial support to their children and prevent them from attending events that may harm the PRC’s reputation in the world.