In November last year, the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Dong Yuyu to 7 years in prison for espionage, her family previously said. Then-US ambassador Nicholas Burns wrote on X at the time that the verdict was unjust.
The son of a Chinese journalist jailed for spying has demanded the release of his father, who has been sentenced to 7 years in prison in a high-profile case. The case has indicated Beijing’s tight grip on journalism in China. The US has also expressed disappointment over the arrest and has demanded the early release of the senior journalist.
Dong Yuyu, who was then a senior editor of a Communist Party-run newspaper, and was isolated due to the party’s tough policies, was arrested in February 2022 while having lunch with a Japanese diplomat in Beijing.
Nothing to do with espionage: Journalist’s son
The journalist’s son Dong Yifu said at the National Press Club in Washington on Monday that his father plans to appeal his sentence. He has requested Japanese authorities to help show that Dong Yuyu had nothing to do with espionage during meetings with Japanese diplomats.
Dong Yifu said, “This is a matter of freedom of the press. It is also a human rights issue. This matter has little to do with national security or espionage.” However, there was no immediate response from China’s Foreign Ministry on this matter.
Dong Yuyu was previously the deputy head of the commentary department at Guangming Daily, one of China’s newspapers that was once considered more liberal than other party outlets. Dong Yuyu has written many articles arguing for constitutional democracy, political reform and official accountability. Ideas that were once openly discussed in party outlets but are no longer much liked.
Long-standing ties with Japan
He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University from 2006 to 2007 and became a visiting fellow at Keio University in Japan in 2010. He later served as a visiting professor at Hokkaido University in Japan before returning to China. Dong Yuyu’s arrest, just two months before he planned to retire from Guangming Daily, stunned journalists and diplomats across China.
It is common for journalists to maintain contact with diplomats as part of news gathering. The junior Dong said his mother later heard in court that eight meetings with Japanese diplomats were listed as evidence against his father.
In November last year, the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Dong Yuyu to seven years in prison for espionage, his family had previously said. Then-US ambassador Nicholas Burns wrote on X at the time that the verdict was unjust.
Brutality with journalist in China
His son said, “Dong Yifu is in good health and is trying to keep fit by doing 200 pushups and 200 leg raises in prison, but he gets only a few hours of sunlight a year and is not allowed to meet his wife. His lawyers meet him once a month and bring him handwritten letters from his wife. His father has prepared a 45-page handwritten document for an appeal.
On Friday last week, the US State Department demanded the immediate and unconditional release of Dong Yuyu in a post on social media platform X. Paris-based Reporters Without Borders also criticised China’s press freedom situation in a statement, saying the country is “the world’s largest prison for journalists”, with more than 100 journalists currently detained.
