Chinese language journalist Dong Yuyu is seen on this undated picture supplied by his household on November 29, 2024.
Dong Yuyu’s household
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Dong Yuyu’s household
TAIPEI, Taiwan — China has sentenced a longtime Chinese language state media journalist to seven years in jail on fees of espionage, in a case press freedom advocates have criticized as opaque and politicized.
Dong Yuyu, 62, had been detained whereas lunching with a Japanese diplomat at a Beijing resort in February 2022 and held for half a yr in a secret location earlier than being formally charged with espionage, a cost he denied, his household says.
The 7-year sentence, delivered in a Beijing court docket on Friday, got here after months of delays in Dong’s sentencing. As in all instances China deems associated to nationwide safety, Dong’s trial was held in secret, with no press or household current, and the court docket supplied no information of the testimony or proof to the general public.
“Yuyu is being persecuted for the independence he has demonstrated throughout a lifetime spent as a journalist,” his household stated in a press release.
On Friday, Dong’s legal professionals and household had been allowed in court docket for the sentencing judgement, which was learn aloud however not shared in writing. The sentencing accused Dong of inappropriately sharing info with two Japanese diplomats, together with its then ambassador to China, in line with a press release from Dong’s household.
Properly-known amongst tutorial and diplomatic circles for his liberal writings and scholarship, Dong labored for many years as a journalist and editor at Guangming Each day, a Communist Social gathering-run publication. He typically traveled overseas and met with overseas consultants in China, exchanges he all the time disclosed however which his household now believes could have led to his arrest.
“He’s the epitome of the form of people-to-people exchanges that China has been working so arduous to determine and keep for the previous 30 years,” the Nationwide Press Membership, an advocacy group primarily based in Washington, stated in a press release after Dong’s trial concluded in 2023. “That period is now over.”
Greater than 60 lecturers, former diplomats, and journalists have signed an open letter protesting his arrest.
From 2006-2007, Dong studied at Harvard College after receiving its prestigious Nieman journalism fellowship. In 2010, he was a visiting fellow at Japan’s Keio College, and in 2014 he spent the yr as a visiting professor at Hokkaido College.
He wrote brazenly on how he believed China’s ruling Communist Social gathering might enhance its governance however was no dissident or revolutionary. In 2002, the state-administered All China Journalists Affiliation gave Dong an award for a commentary piece he authored which praised the achievements and plans of the Communist Social gathering.
“Yuyu will now be often known as a traitor in his personal nation, as a substitute of being acknowledged as somebody who all the time fought for a greater Chinese language society,” his household stated.
