cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/35897602
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Cheng, now 49, spent more than three years cut off from the outside world in detention in Beijing, subjected to horrific mental torture after falling foul of the Communist Party.
Her crime? Discussing a government press release with a fellow journalist several minutes ahead of a supposed embargo.
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Why China went after the respected broadcaster, who was the face of the country’s CGTN news channel and anchor of its most popular program, is still a mystery.
But her arrest and imprisonment coincided with a deep erosion of diplomatic and trade relations between Beijing and Canberra, leading many to conclude she was a pawn in a merciless political game.
Almost five years on, she still bears the deep scars of her barbaric treatment.
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In August 2020, Cheng was greeted at work by some 20 officials from the secretive Ministry of State Security.
“I am informing you on behalf of the Beijing State Security Bureau that you are being investigated for supplying state secrets to foreign organisations,” one told her.
A few months earlier, Cheng had received a press release about the Premier’s Work Report, the main document to come out of the Communist Party’s largest political gathering of the year.
She was sitting in a make-up chair, getting ready to go on air, and texted a colleague a brief summary of the highlights – eight million jobs target, no GDP growth target – to help them get a headstart on a story.
“And that was my crime, that I eroded the Chinese state authority, even though there wasn’t an embargo [on the report],” Cheng recalled.
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Much later, in court, another colleague who she barely knew testified against her – likely under coercion – and claimed she’d told Cheng there was in fact a strict embargo.
“That is bogus,” she said.
“If I had known it was a classified document embargoed before 7.30, why would I send it to my friend, and then keep the document, keep the texts?”
Cheng was taken from her office to her apartment and watched on as spies ransacked it, looking for evidence that didn’t exist.
Then she was blindfolded, bundled into a blacked-out SUV and whisked to an RSDL facility, or Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location.
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For months, she was interrogated relentlessly as the Ministry of State Security tried to justify its trumped-up charges.
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Cheng was monitored every other moment of the day, including when using the toilet and while sleeping.
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After six months, she was pressured to confess to the manufactured charges or face a more severe punishment at the end of a trial.
Reluctantly, she did, knowing her fate was inevitable. No-one is found innocent in China’s justice system.
“I worked out what ages my kids would be by the time I got out,” she recalled. “It was horrible. But had I not pleaded guilty, my sentence would have been a lot longer and my treatment would have been a lot worse.
“What is the point of a defence lawyer? There’s only the state. The state is the only thing that matters.
“And at least in jail, I could see a bit of the sky.”
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Australian Ambassador to China Graham Fletcher was blocked from entering Cheng Lei’s closed-door trial.
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In all, Cheng spent three years in detention before eventually being freed in October 2023 after a long-running public campaign tirelessly fought by her peers and friends, and the diplomatic efforts of the Australian Government.
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When she left the detention centre, she was taken to a halfway house and for the first time years, she was able to enjoy what she describes as being a host of “luxuries” like a mirror, a sit-down toilet, and a string to hang her washing on.
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Some things will never be normal, though, like the high likelihood Chinese spies based here in Australia are monitoring her.
“I assume there is some monitoring, but I have a very fearless attitude. I was there, they could do [those things] to me, they can’t do that to me here.
“And I think if we live in fear and self-censor and always check ourselves, just in case China gets the s***s again, then what’s the point of freedom? We may as well be living in China.”