Former Chinese state media journalist Dong Yue has been sentenced to 7 years in prison on charges of espionage. A court in Beijing announced the verdict on Friday (November 29). His family confirmed the matter to the British media BBC.
Dong Yue (62) has been detained since 2022. Active in academia and journalism in the United States and Japan, Dong maintained regular contact with foreign diplomats. In February 2022, he was arrested by the police while having lunch with a Japanese diplomat in Beijing.
Dong was then working as a senior staff member at the Guangming Daily, one of the top five Chinese Communist Party-affiliated newspapers.
Dong was meeting with a Japanese diplomat at a restaurant when he was detained. The diplomat was also detained for several hours, then released after protests by the Japanese government.
Dong's family said the court ruling said he met with two diplomats from the Japanese embassy, ​​who were described as “agents of the spy agency”.
“We are shocked that Chinese authorities have labeled a foreign embassy as a spy agency,” his family said in a statement.
They added that today's verdict is a grave injustice not only to Dong Yue and his family, but also to every free-thinking Chinese journalist and ordinary Chinese citizen who wishes to maintain friendly relations with the world.
Tight security was seen during Dong's sentencing at the Beijing court. Reuters reported that journalists were kicked out and diplomats were not allowed to attend the hearing.
Dong joined Guangming Daily after graduating from Peking University Law Department in 1987. He was sent to a labor camp for participating in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. But he managed to keep his job.
He later became the deputy head of the editorial department and was known as a reformist voice in the magazine.
Dong was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2007 and has written several articles for The New York Times. In addition, he has served as a visiting fellow and professor at various universities in Japan.
International human rights organizations and organizations working on behalf of journalists have expressed deep concern over Dong's sentencing.
