Sad story:
An Australian mother of two detained in China for allegedly leaking state secrets has told Australian diplomats she has been warned her family should not raise her case in the media.
Cheng Lei, a former Chinese state-television journalist and news anchor, has repeatedly been denied access to a lawyer and is being held without charge in a Beijing prison.
She is being kept in a cell with two others and is brought to a different room once a month for a highly controlled video call with Australia's ambassador Graeme Fletcher or other Australian consular officials.
For the latest visit this week, she was brought into the room blindfolded, masked and handcuffed by four guards, two of whom were wearing full PPE hazmat suits.
She was made to sit in a chair with a wooden restraint affixed across her lap, before having her blindfold and face mask removed for the webcam interview, according to notes of the virtual visit.
Guards tightly control the topics that can be discussed but Australian consular officials have learned that Ms Cheng is still not allowed to speak on the phone to her children in Melbourne, aged 11 and nine.
In a previous visit in March, held just weeks after her family broke their silence in an interview with the ABC's 730 program, Ms Cheng told Australian officials "she'd been led to believe, in the context of the interrogations, that her family speaking to the media could end up impacting negatively on her case".
Australian officials noted "she made this point carefully and said nothing further on the matter".
It came after Ms Cheng's niece in Melbourne Louisa Wen, speaking on behalf of the family, called on Chinese authorities to "show compassion".
Would be a shame if we talked about it.
Odd WeChat posts raise questions
Since confirming in February Ms Cheng Lei is under investigation for "providing state secrets or intelligence to foreign entities", China's government has provided no other detail on her case.
State media has reported on the brief official statements.
But a series of posts and videos from several small public blog accounts on the social media app WeChat have emerged in recent months, denouncing Ms Cheng as a "spy" and writing about her in far more detail than what the official state media provides.
One WeChat account registered to a woman in Heilongjiang province with the name "Beijing small sweet melon" wrote a post in early April with an elaborate chronology of Cheng Lei's life, titled: "Betraying her motherland, how did CCTV famous anchor Cheng Lei become an Australian spy?"
The author mined Ms Cheng's WeChat and Facebook posts, decrying her as "two-faced" for expressing concerns on Facebook in early 2020 about the risk of her family contracting coronavirus, supposedly an unpatriotic criticism of China's containment efforts.
The lengthy post also delved into her personal and professional biography, getting some details wrong and making up others, claiming "China has given you everything, yet you counterattack as a tool of the enemy".
The same account was used to denounce Chinese-Australian writer and commentator Vicky Xu as a "traitor" earlier this year.
A relatively quick trial, conviction and a short sentence — including time served before deportation — is viewed by some supporters as the least-worst scenario.
But another Australian detained in Beijing for state security crimes, Yang Hengjun, has spent more than two years behind bars without trial.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/markets/australian-mother-marks-nine-months-in-chinese-prison-as-curious-online-posts-emerge/ar-BB1g9CaE
It's curious how a state news agent would function as a spy.
How is this the case?
What are the exact nature of the charges?
There's not much concrete information at all. From another article:
"Chinese authorities have advised that Ms Cheng was arrested on suspicion of illegally supplying state secrets overseas," Payne said, adding that "the Australian Government has raised its serious concerns about Ms Cheng's detention regularly at senior levels, including about her welfare and conditions of detention."
...
"The Chinese judicial organs handle the case in accordance with the law and fully guarantee the rights of Cheng Lei," Wang said Monday. "We hope that the Australian side will respect China's judicial sovereignty and stop interfering with China in handling cases according to law."
...
Soon after Cheng was detained, two Australian journalists working in China fled the country after authorities attempted to question them on national security grounds, leaving Australia's media without any journalists working in China for the first time in nearly 50 years.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/07/media/china-australia-cheng-lei-cgtn-intl-hnk/index.html
Tight lipped commies not letting anyone know what is really going on.
But truly the most remarkable part: China controls the narrative about itself so much it won't allow any Australians into the country to report on it.
It is a totalitarian Communist state.
@philokalia saidI take it she is not part of the feminist virus then.
Sad story:
[quote]An Australian mother of two detained in China for allegedly leaking state secrets has told Australian diplomats she has been warned her family should not raise her case in the media.
Cheng Lei, a former Chinese state-television journalist and news anchor, has repeatedly been denied access to a lawyer and is being held without charge in a Beijing pri ...[text shortened]... 't allow any Australians into the country to report on it.
It is a totalitarian Communist state.
“ It is a totalitarian Communist state”
Err no actually it’s a totalitarian capitalist state.
I would view Cheng Lei as being China's answer to Alexei Navalny, poor woman.
Please note: Sometimes it is brought to my attention that the US has prisoners in Guantanamo (G'itmo)
that are being held without legal representation and with no formal charges against them.
I am NOT one that supports that illegal action. thank you for not implying that as an American, I must. I don't.