This is one of the wildest stories I’ve ever heard
Tl;dr: It’s terrifying, and should make anyone in the West grateful and appreciative of their legal system
Australian citizen Matthew Radalj was arrested for stealing his own phone… yep, you heard that right, he stole his own phone 😂
He was then beaten, tortured, and jailed for years
And his embassy? Barely helped. They apparently focus on helping Australians born in China more than Australians born in Australia
Mathew’s story:
He breaks his iPhone 11 and takes it to a local shop he trusted, with a guy he’d been going to for years.
The guys tries to charge him more than than he initially quoted
Mathew refuses, and pays the man what they initially agreed, and walks off
Next thing he knows? The security pepper sprays him, he fights back, people mob him…. And he gets arrested
After talking to police and going to the station, he finds out they didn’t care for the facts and already consider him the ‘foreign villain’, and he somehow ends up getting beaten, then tortured and jailed for years.
It’s one of those stories that makes you rethink how safe you really are when you’re overseas, even if you’ve done “everything right.”
And if you think your embassy will always have your back abroad… think again.
Full Interview with @MatthewRadalj below.
0:00 - How taking his own phone led to 5 years in a Chinese prison
3:12 - A normal phone repair that spiraled fast
7:05 - Getting jumped by security and chased by a mob in Beijing
8:53 - Police show up and suddenly money becomes the focus
11:28 - Finding out robbery is the official story
13:03 - Getting pulled into a death accusation out of nowhere
14:06 - When being Australian suddenly matters
17:23 - What 2 days of custody really looked like
18:05 - Being stripped and processed into the detention system
21:21 - Seeing people strapped to chairs and trying to make sense of it
22:33 - Being questioned while badly concussed
24:27 - The moment it sinks in that this is prison
25:24 - Walking into a Chinese prison cell
26:00 - The simple question no one ever asked about the phone
27:31 - How the story locks in early
30:09 - Asking for a lawyer and hitting a wall
31:05 - The Australian Embassy finally visits
31:24 - That visit going in a very different direction
33:28 - What 5 years inside does to your trust
34:18 - Realizing the system was the only link out
