China Claims Detained Hong Kong Reporter Confessed to Spying
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan on Tuesday said Ching Cheong, a veteran reporter with the Singapore newspaper The Straits Times, admitted to the charges while in detention over the past several weeks.
"He already admitted that in recent years he engaged in intelligence-gathering activities on the mainland on instructions from foreign intelligence agencies, and accepted large amounts of fees. Of course we have full evidence," said Kong Quan. "He himself admitted this."
The Chinese official gave no answer when asked for what foreign country or agency Mr. Ching, who holds a British passport, is accused of spying.
The press freedom advocacy group Reporters Without Borders in Paris has called on foreign governments to pressure China to release Mr. Ching. Vincent Brossel, head of the group's Asia-Pacific desk, says there is no evidence to date that Mr. Ching might have been tortured. However, he says the group questions the means by which the government might have obtained a confession.
"When you detain someone for a month and you put pressure on his family, you put a lot of pressure on him, it's obvious you can get some confession," said Mr. Brossel. "I don't know exactly what is the content of his confession. We just hope that the lawyer will get access to him, and also that his trial will be fair."
Singapore Press Holdings, the owner of The Straits Times, said in a statement that unless it sees evidence otherwise, it believes Mr. Ching "always acted in the best interests of The Straits Times."
British consular officials in Beijing on Tuesday indicated they had not yet been allowed to communicate with the journalist and had no information on his condition.
Chinese agents arrested Mr. Ching on April 22 in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. People close to Mr. Ching say he had traveled to mainland China to collect documents related to Zhao Ziyang, a purged Communist Party leader who died in January.
Advocacy groups say China continues to be the nation with the world's highest number of journalists in prison. China's spying laws are quite strict and much information that is public knowledge in many countries, such as social welfare statistics, is considered secret in China.
Ching Cheong is the second employee of a foreign paper who has been arrested in the country over the past few months.
Zhao Yan, a New York Times research assistant has been jailed since September. Authorities arrested him on charges of divulging state secrets and later accused him of fraud. His imprisonment has prompted inquiries from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her predecessor, Colin Powell, who called for his release.
Mr. Zhao, a Chinese national, has yet to go on trial.
Hong Kong Reporter Detained in China
VOA News | May 30, 2005
By Heda Bayron
A Hong Kong-based reporter for Singapore's largest English language daily has been detained in China for allegedly obtaining state secrets.
Ching Cheong, the China correspondent for Singapore's Straits Times newspaper, is said to have been arrested on April 22 in the southern city of Guangzhou.
Mr. Ching's wife, Mary Lau, told Hong Kong journalists that her husband had traveled to Guangzhou to obtain transcripts of secret interviews with former Chinese Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang.
Mr. Zhao was purged from the Communist Party, and placed under house arrest until his death in January for opposing the bloody Tiananmen crackdown in 1989.
Irene Ngoo, a vice president of Singapore Press Holdings, which publishes the Straits Times, says the Chinese Embassy in Singapore said Mr. Ching is assisting security authorities in an investigation into a matter "not related" to the newspaper.
"We have no cause to doubt that, throughout his stint of reporting and commenting on China, he has conducted himself with utmost professionalism," said Ms. Ngoo. "We are in close contact with his wife in Hong Kong, and are providing her with every support and assistance."
Mr. Ching previously worked for a pro-Beijing newspaper, Wen Wei Poin, in Hong Kong, but left shortly after China crushed pro-democracy student demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in June 1989. Hundreds are thought to have died during the incident.
Earlier this month, a Chinese reporter in Hunan province Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison for providing state secrets to foreigners. A New York Times researcher has been detained in China since October for allegedly revealing state secrets.
The Committee to Protect Journalists in New York ranks China as the world's top jailer of journalists, with at least 42 reporters jailed last year.
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