A distinguished Chinese language journalist was sentenced in a Beijing court docket to seven years in jail for espionage, in accordance with his household.
Dong Yuyu, a commentator and editor, was detained by police in February 2022 whereas he was assembly a Japanese diplomat at a restaurant, in accordance with The Related Press, and has been in police custody since.
The decision on Friday named then-Japanese ambassador Hideo Tarumi and Shanghai-based chief diplomat Masaru Okada as brokers belonging to an espionage group, Dong’s household stated.
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Chinese language journalist Dong Yuyu stands on the gates of the Nieman Basis for Journalism at Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass., in Might 2017. (Dong Household through AP)
Dong had served because the deputy head of the editorial division at Guangming Every day, a state-owned newspaper in China. He additionally contributed to the Chinese language version of the New York Occasions.
His printed work consists of his help for constitutional democracy and political reform, which have been later deemed to be in opposition to the place of China’s Communist Social gathering.
Dong had contacts with overseas diplomats, students and different journalists by way of his decades-long profession as a journalist. He additionally thought of Tarumi as a buddy.
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Dong Yuyu, a commentator and editor, was detained by police in February 2022 whereas he was assembly a Japanese diplomat at a restaurant. (iStock)
His household stated he knew he was all the time watched by state safety, so he needed to be as open as doable whereas assembly his Japanese or American contacts.
“With Yuyu’s conviction, each Chinese language citizen, when coping with the Japanese embassy — or maybe some other overseas embassy and diplomat — can be anticipated to know that the Chinese language authorities could take into account these embassies to be ‘espionage organizations,'” the household stated in an announcement. “Each wise Chinese language citizen ought to be appalled by this reasoning.”
Dong had contacts with overseas diplomats, students and different journalists by way of his decades-long profession as a journalist. (iStock)
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The U.S. Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, criticized Dong’s conviction.
“Punishing Dong for exercising his freedom of speech and the press, assured by the PRC’s structure for all its residents, is unjust,” Burns stated.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
