The son of the Chinese journalist, who is imprisoned for spy fees, demands his release

The son of a Chinese journalist, who was sentenced to seven years in prison for spy beliefs, asked his father's release and asked the authorities to lift a conviction that triggered an alarm over Beijing's increasing approach to press freedom.

Dong Yuyu, a former seniorrhactor at the Daily with the communist party, was arrested in February 2022 when he had lunch with a Japanese diplomat in Beijing.

His son Dong Yifu, who spoke in the National Press Club in Washington on Monday, asked the Japanese authorities to support his father's appeal by proving that his diplomatic meetings had no connection to espionage.

“It is a problem with freedom of the press. It is a question of human rights. It has very little to do with national security or espionage, ”he said.

The arrest of the older Dongs, just two months before his planned retirement, shocked journalists and diplomats in China, where it is common for reporters, to maintain contact with foreign civil servants as part of their work.

The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court condemned him in November 2023, after the prosecutors had presented eight meetings with Japanese diplomats as evidence against him, according to his family.

Dong Yuyu was known for the fact that he had approved the constitutional democracy, political reforms and responsibility of the government in his articles that had once been open to the party of the party, but have since fallen in favor.

Previously, he was Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and later held academic positions at Keio University and Hokkaido University in Japan in Japan before returning to China.

Despite his detention, Dong's son says that he is still in good health and retains his fitness with daily exercise. However, he can only allow sunlight a year for a few hours and it was not allowed to see his wife.

His lawyer, who visits monthly, provides his wife's handwritten letters, and the older Dong has prepared a 45-page appeal document that denies his conviction.

The conviction has produced a widespread conviction of supporters of the freedom of the press. Reporters without borders have referred to China as “the world's largest prison for journalists” and reports that more than 100 are detained.

Last Friday, the US State Department called for the immediate and unconditional publication of Dong, while the former US ambassador Nicholas previously condemned the judgment on X as unfair.

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not yet commented on the case.