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A former Chinese state media journalist has been sentenced on Friday to seven years in jail for espionage, his household has confirmed to the BBC.
Dong Yuyu, 62, who has been detained since 2022, was lively in educational and journalism circles within the US and Japan and met frequently with overseas diplomats.
He was having lunch with a Japanese diplomat in Beijing when he was arrested by police.
At the time of his detention, Dong had been a senior employees member of the Guangming Daily, one of many 5 main newspapers linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
In February 2022, Dong was arrested whereas having lunch with a Japanese diplomat the day after the Winter Olympics led to Beijing, at a restaurant the place he had typically met overseas pals.
The diplomat was additionally detained – then launched a number of hours later amid protests from the Japanese authorities.
Dong met frequently with different journalists and overseas diplomats as a part of his job.
His household stated in a press release that based on a court docket judgement, two different Japanese diplomats Dong met with have been named as “agents of an espionage organisation”, which is the Japanese embassy.
“We are shocked that the Chinese authorities would blatantly deem a foreign embassy an ‘espionage organization'”, stated his household’s assertion.
“Today’s verdict is a grave injustice not only to Yuyu and his family but also to every freethinking Chinese journalist and every ordinary Chinese committed to friendly engagement with the world,” they added.
The Beijing court docket the place Dong was sentenced on Friday had a robust safety presence, Reuters reported, as journalists have been requested to depart and a diplomat stated they weren’t allowed to attend the listening to.
“In the past, the Chinese court system has selected Western holidays to release news as it is a time when the public is focused on other matters,” the US National Press Club stated in a press release on Tuesday, forward of Dong’s sentencing on Thanksgiving night time within the US.
While Dong’s trial had been accomplished in July 2023, he was held with no verdict and barred from seeing his household, the press membership stated.
Rights teams and advocates have criticised his conviction and known as for him to be launched.
“Chinese authorities must reverse this unjust verdict, and protect the right of journalists to work freely and safely in China,” Beh Lih Yi, Asia program supervisor on the Committe to Protect Journalists informed Reuters.
“Dong Yuyu should be reunited with his family immediately.”
Dong joined the Guangming Daily after graduating from Peking University’s regulation college in 1987.
In 1989, he was one in all tens of hundreds of scholars who participated within the Tiananmen Square protests. He was later sentenced to arduous labour, however stored his job on the newspaper, based on a household assertion.
He finally rose to develop into deputy head of the editorial division, and was among the many most pro-reform voices at Guangming Daily, the assertion added.
A Nieman fellow at Harvard University in 2007, Dong had additionally written a number of articles for the New York Times and was beforehand a visiting fellow and professor at a number of Japanese universities.
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