By Juliana Chan
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia
BEIJING, China – After spending nearly three years in jail in China on charges of spying for Taiwan, Hong Kong reporter Ching Cheong was released on parole Tuesday from a prison in Guangdong Province.
Mr. Ching, 58, a correspondent for Singapore’s The Straits Times newspaper, was arrested in April 2005 during a visit to the city of Guangzhou. He was held in custody for 16 months before a one-day, closed-door trial in August 2006, in which he was convicted for selling state secrets to a Taiwan foundation that was a front for an espionage agency. Mr. Ching was sentenced to five years in prison.
China’s official Xinhua reported at the time that Mr. Ching’s sentence was mitigated because he confessed to more espionage activities than those the state had known about. Mr. Ching’s wife, Mary Lau, said her husband traveled to China to obtain recordings of secret interviews with the late Communist Party chief, Zhao Ziyang.
Mr. Ching’s conviction was widely criticized as yet another attempt by China to use legal sanctions to censor free speech and control information. Fellow Hong Kong journalists, press freedom groups, and other human rights organizations condemned his detainment.
Since his release, Mr. Ching thanked the Chinese government, and expressed how “very happy that I was able to return to Hong Kong and reunite with my family before the Chinese New Year.”
Hong Kong’s chief executive, Donald Tsang, welcomed Mr. Ching’s release, but human rights campaigners in Hong Kong said other journalists or academics are still at risk of arrest and imprisonment. Mr. Ching’s early release did not offset what they say to be a flawed conviction.
Law Yuk-kai, director of the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor said, “It fell far short of the standards of criminal proof required under international human rights treaties and there was no presumption of innocence.”
For more information, please see:
AFP – Hong Kong reporter freed early from China jail – 05 February 2008
The New York Times – China Frees Hong Kong Journalist – 06 February 2008
AP – China Releases Jailed Hong Kong Reporter – 05 February 2008
BBC News – China frees Hong Kong journalist – 05 February 2008
