A Beijing court handed down a seven-year prison term to Dong Yuyu‚ a well-respected Chinese news-writer who worked at state-run paper Guangming Daily. The 62-year old Harvard-trained journalist got his sentence on nov-29 (which his relatives call totally wrong)
The experienced columnist — who made his name writing smart takes on Chinaʼs money and power moves — got picked up by police around 2.5 years ago while talking to a Japanʼs embassy person at a hotel in Beijing. Dong built his career at one of the main party papers where he pushed for new ideas; and met often with people from other countries
His work mixed deep know-how about Chinese politics with links to foreign press and officials: which made him stand out. At Guangming Daily (one of the big communist party news-outlets) he wrote lots about fixing old systems
The whole thing started when cops grabbed him during what seemed like a normal meet-up with a Japanese official — something that was part of his regular work-life as someone who talked to foreign contacts often. His family says these spy claims dont make any sense and are just plain wrong