søndag 6. september 2020

'Tit-for-tat': China's detention of Australian Cheng Lei is ringing alarm bells

For two long weeks few people, outside of perhaps some family members, knew where Cheng Lei was. She stopped posting on social media and answering calls from friends. Her two young children in Melbourne couldn’t speak to her. The well-known TV anchor simply stopped showing up at the state broadcaster, CGTN in Beijing, and her colleagues weren’t told why. At some point during that fortnight, any evidence she had worked for them was completely scrubbed from the internet.

Meanwhile, Lei sat in a solitary suicide-proofed room where the lights are rarely if ever turned off, detained by Chinese authorities. Unable to call anyone or access a lawyer, accounts from other people held in similar detention conditions suggest her days are broken up only by interrogations from Chinese authorities over the still unknown allegations she faces. But according to human rights groups, dissidents, and China academics, it’s possible the charges hardly matter, and the most relevant factor is her Australian citizenship.