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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| China jails Singapore newspaper reporter for spying |
| 2006-08-31 |
| EFL A Chinese court jailed a reporter for a Singapore newspaper for five years on Thursday for spying, the latest in a series of high-profile cases illustrating China's curbs on the media and dissent. Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong-based China correspondent for the Straits Times who has been detained in China since April 2005, was also deprived of his political rights for a year and had personal property worth 300,000 yuan (19,400 pounds) confiscated, Xinhua news agency said. Ching, 56, was charged with spying for Taiwan, the self-ruled island over which Beijing claims sovereignty. He was detained in the southern province of Guangdong where, his wife has said, he had travelled to collect documents related to disgraced former Chinese Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang. Court officials in Beijing reached by telephone declined to comment on the verdict or sentencing in a trial which was held behind closed doors. Ching's wife could not be reached. Ching's lawyer, He Peihua, and a family member left the court by car. Reached by telephone, the lawyer said the family had asked him not to reveal any details. The China-born Ching, like many Hong Kong residents, holds a passport of the Special Administrative Region as well as a British National (Overseas) passport issued in the waning days of British colonial rule. He is also a Singapore permanent resident. Xinhua last year said Ching had received millions of Hong Kong dollars from Taiwan's intelligence apparatus and used the money to buy unspecified information on China's political, economy and military affairs between 2000 and 2005. On Friday, a Beijing court dismissed charges that a Chinese researcher for the New York Times had illegally leaked state secrets, but sentenced him to three years for fraud. Zhao Yan, 44, had been accused of telling the U.S. newspaper details of rivalry between Chinese President Hu Jintao and his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, over military appointments in 2004. Days before Zhao's sentencing, China jailed blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng for four years and three months for damaging property and disrupting traffic in what critics considered an unusually harsh sentence. |
| Posted by:ryuge |