singapore

The Spy Trap

Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong-based correspondent for Singapore’s Straits Times, was arrested in Guangzhou in April 2005 while trying to obtain transcripts of interviews with the late Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang, who was ousted in 1989 for expressing sympathy with Tiananmen demonstrators. Ching was later sentenced to five years in prison for espionage, a charge he and his supporters deny. His family says he suffers from heart problems and abdominal pain. CPJ interviewed his wife, Mary Lau, about the case.