A Chinese-Australian journalist who worked for China’s state broadcaster and was convicted on charges of espionage opened up about the deplorable conditions of her detention while also revealing how she allowed to stand in sunlight only for 10 hours each year
The journalist has identified as Cheng Lei who found guilty on national security charges at a closed-door trial last year and is yet to sentenced.
She hasn’t seen a tree since her detention and misses her family including her daughter and son who are now entering high school, Cheng said in a statement conveyed to an Australian diplomat and released to local media.
“I relive every bushwalk, river, lake, beach with swims and picnics and psychedelic sunsets, sky that lit up with stars, and the silent and secret symphony of the bush,” Cheng said in the statement read by her partner Nick Coyle.
Cheng statement
“I secretly mouth the names of places I’ve visited and driven through. It is the Chinese in me that has probably gone beyond the legal limit of sentimentality. Most of all, I miss my children,” Cheng said
Coyle said that Cheng had allowed to write to him since September last year.
He said that the toll her children were taking due to the long-term separation was the most difficult thing for her.
He said she hoped to send a message to Australians in her statement.
“It’s trying to communicate with the Australian people who she is, and what she loves about her country,” Coyle told a news channel.
“It’s a country that she feels very lucky to have come to at a very young age and had the benefit of our warmth and multicultural nature, and education, and way of life. So she misses it,” he added.
Cheng, 48, moved with her family to Australia at age 10.
She returned to China to work for the international department of state broadcaster CCTV