Ching Cheong, a journalist condemned without proof, is freed
ICC Note:
Though not specifically in regard to Christian persecution, this article highlights the kind of oppressive government under which Christians and all citizens are forced to live – a place where a known 42 and likely more journalist are imprisoned for “crimes against the country.”
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2/5/08 China (AsiaNews) Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong journalist who had been condemned without proof to 5 years in prison for Βspying for TaiwanΒ, was released on parole this morning after having spent half of the sentence in a jail in Guangzhou. He will be able to spend the Lunar New Year with his family.
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57 year old Ching, was first arrested in April 2005. On August 31 of the following year, judges in a lower Chinese court condemned him to 5 years prison: the journalist apparently confessed to having sold military information to Taiwan and of having organised a network of spies to Βsell state secretsΒ to foreign powers.
In November 2006, BeijingΒs Supreme Court rejected his appeal and confirmed the sentence, after a one day trial during which no evidence against the journalist, chief China correspondent for the Singapore daily Straits Times, was presented.
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In China, the vast majority of information on the life of the nation is considered ΒState secretΒ and reporting on these ΒsecretsΒ in media is considered Βan attack against state securityΒ. Currently at least 42 journalists are being held in prison for this crime across the country.
