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A British teacher says he was forced to share a squalid cell with up to 15 other people after he was detained while travelling through China.

Bobby Silby spent 10 days in a detention centre in Beijing - where he had to watch propaganda videos or films starring Nicolas Cage - for "not being a friend of China" after he publicly criticised the country.

The 32-year-old supply teacher says he is relieved to be back home in Hull after a surreal and frightening experience in a crowded cell with just a squat toilet, no beds and one shower for more than a dozen people.

Mr Silby, former chairman of Hull Labour Party, believes Chinese authorities were trying to make an example of him and crack down on free speech after he spoke out against the ruling Communist Party on social media and in radio interviews at home.

(Image: Hull Daily Mail)

He was stopped at Beijing Airport while catching a connecting flight back to the UK after a family holiday in the Philippines, the Hull Daily Mail reports.

Guards were aware of his Facebook posts and knew the names of his wife and daughter.

Mr Silby, who used to work as a university teacher in China, said: "Luckily my wife and daughter were flying back separately but my flight was via Beijing Airport.

"I only had an hour and five minutes to catch my connecting flight but was pulled aside at a security check by two guards.

(Image: Hull Daily Mail)

"To my amazement, they seemed to know everything about me, including my wife's name, my four-year-old daughter's name and what I had been posting about China on Facebook.

"I've heard from other people who have experienced the same thing that this is known as a 'shake down'.

"The idea is that they make you miss your flight and generally disrupt your travel arrangements."

Mr Silby said the guards told him he was being detained because he was "not being a friend of China".

He added: "I had about 40 minutes left to find my flight so I started to walk away and they chased after me, knocking over a computer which they then accused me of breaking.

(Image: Hull Daily Mail)

"I was taken to a police station where I was held for 18 hours without being told anything.

"Bizarrely, they hadn't taken my mobile phone off me so I filmed some video from inside the station and posted it on Facebook."

Friends back in the UK used the video to pinpoint his location and alert the British Embassy in Beijing.

Mr Silby described how he was sent for ten days in administrative detention.

He said: "That turned out to be a room probably 30ft by 15ft with 16 people in it. There were no beds, just a shelf along one wall, one toilet which you had to squat over and a basic shower cubicle at one end.

"We got three meals a day, usually boiled cabbage, and were allowed out every three or four days for a short walk in an outside yard."

(Image: Touchstone)

Mr Silby said his fellow detainees ranged from international travellers to Chinese citizens accused of associating with prostitutes or not having a driving licence.

He said: "There was even one guy in there for not having a proper welding licence.

"Every morning we had to watch propaganda films saying what a great harmonious society the Communist Party had created in China.

"In the afternoons, they screened really terrible films, usually with Nicolas Cage in them. It was weird."

With his mobile phone confiscated, his Facebook video led to pressure being exerted by several Labour MPs, including Hull North MP Diana Johnson.

(Image: calflier001 / Wikimedia Commons)

Mr Silby was released after ten days but not officially deported.

He said: "They just took me to the airport and dropped me off. It was surreal."

He has no immediate plans to return to China.

He said: "When I lived there you learned to keep your head down.

"After this, I want people to know what it's really like in China. It's not a normal country despite the Chinese trying to portray it that way.

"They make a great effort to sanitise their own image but it is a very abnormal country."