After 1,000 Days of Detention, Calls Continue for CCP to Release Detained Australian Journalist

Australian journalist Cheng Lei is seen in Beijing, China, in this still image taken from undated video footage. Australia Global Alumni-Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade/Handout via REUTERS

After 1,000 days of detention, public calls continue for the release of Chinese-Australian journalist Cheng Lei.

“Today marks 1,000 days since Ms. Cheng was unjustly detained in China in August 2020,” said Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Birmingham.

“It is impossible for any of us outside this situation to imagine the physical and emotional trauma of being detained for such a long period of time,” they said in a statement on May 9.

“After 1,000 days of unjust detention, it is time the Chinese government closed Ms. Cheng’s case, restored her freedom, and allowed her to return home to her family.”

Dutton and Birmingham also said that Jan. 19, 2023, marked four years since the detention of another Chinese-Australian, Dr. Yang Hengjun.

Their comments come after an article from Cheng’s partner, Nick Coyle, was published to mark the 1,000-day mark of her detention.

“We still don’t know why she was taken, why she was charged with deliberately vague national security breaches, or when she might be with us again,” he wrote in The Australian newspaper.

“The other victims of the opaque Chinese legal system, in this case, have been her two children, then nine and eleven.”

Coyle said Cheng was finding ways to pass time while in detention.

“In true survivor’s style, my friend suggested [Cheng] get the most out of her time in the ’twilight zone.' To read, reflect, study, meditate, and imagine that she has chosen to go on a monastic digital detox retreat,” he wrote.

“Lei is doing all of that and more. Wasting time and not making the best of any situation is not in her DNA. They may have taken her out of the world, but they can’t take the world out of her.”

Efforts Continue to Free Cheng

Diplomatic efforts from Australian officials continue in the quest to free Cheng.

“Australia has consistently called for Ms. Cheng to be afforded basic standards of justice, procedural fairness, and humane treatment in accordance with international norms,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a statement.

Cheng was arrested by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities in 2020 on charges of “illegally supplying state secrets overseas.”

She had been working at the time of her arrest as a news anchor for China Global Television Network and was in prison for 19 months prior to her closed-door trial last year. Cheng is still awaiting the outcome of those proceedings.

Cheng’s two young children and family reside in the southern Australian city of Melbourne in Victoria. But, according to Cheng’s partner, Coyle, she has not been able to contact them regularly.

CCP authorities have regularly denied Australian consulate staff contact with Cheng, with Coyle revealing that the journalist has only had two face-to-face consular visits during her 31-month detention.

Victoria Kelly-Clark contributed to this article.