Chinese detention horror: A Chinese-Australian journalist who worked for China’s state broadcaster and was convicted on charges of espionage opened up about the deplorable conditions of her detention while also revealing how she was allowed to stand in sunlight only for 10 hours each year.
The journalist was identified as Cheng Lei who was found guilty on national security charges at a closed-door trial last year and is yet to be sentenced.
She hasn’t seen a tree since her detention and misses her family including her daughter and son who are now entering high school, Cheng said in a statement conveyed to an Australian diplomat and released to local media.
“I relive every bushwalk, river, lake, beach with swims and picnics and psychedelic sunsets, sky that is lit up with stars, and the silent and secret symphony of the bush,” Cheng said in the statement read by her partner Nick Coyle.
“I secretly mouth the names of places I've visited and driven through. It is the Chinese in me that has probably gone beyond the legal limit of sentimentality. Most of all, I miss my children,” Cheng said.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong assured the country’s continued support for Cheng and her family and batted for her well-being.
“Ms. Cheng's message to the public makes clear her deep love for our country. All Australians want to see her reunited with her children,” Wong said in a statement.
Wong said Australia had consistently advocated for Cheng and “asked that basic standards of justice, procedural fairness and humane treatment to be met for Ms Cheng, in accordance with international norms.”
Cheng allowed to write to Coyle only since last September
Coyle said that Cheng had been allowed to write to him since September last year.
He said that the toll her children were taking due to the long-term separation was the most difficult thing for her.
He said she hoped to send a message to Australians in her statement.
“It's trying to communicate with the Australian people who she is, and what she loves about her country,” Coyle told a news channel.
“It's a country that she feels very lucky to have come to at a very young age and had the benefit of our warmth and multicultural nature, and education, and way of life. So she misses it,” he added.
Cheng, 48, moved with her family to Australia at age 10.
She returned to China to work for the international department of state broadcaster CCTV.
The details behind her detention and trial remain sealed.
Chinese prosecutors have broad powers to level charges of spying or leaking state secrets with little or no evidence, and Cheng could face years of prison.
(With AP inputs)
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