End of reporter Ching Cheong` s detention by Barbora Haramiova

China. One of the biggest countries in the world being gossiped about, observed and evaluated. China can be described with these three words. To describe China, one can also mention one factor which does not improve its image in the world. There are more journalists being hold in prison than in any other country. One of the prisoners who spend a part of their lives as a criminal is Ching Cheong, a journalist from Hong Kong. Ching Cheong`s past was not necessarily enlinked with journalism. In 1973 he graduated with a degree in Economics at the Hong Kong University. Then he began to work as a journalist for a newspaper supporting China. But after a Tiananmen massacre he changed his mind and in order to protest against Chinese aggression he established a magazine in which he and other journalist published comments on China. In 1996 he joined Singapore`s The Straits Times newspaper. According to his job, he visited China in 2005. The main aim of the visit was to find out some information about the former Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang. Unfortunately he could not fulfill his task because of being charged with spying and stealing state secrets for Taiwan. Consequently he was prisoned for a period of five years. Not everybody agreed with the sentence . Organisations such as Hong Kong Journalists Association and Reporters Without Borders were interesting in setting Ching Cheong free. According to their conviction that Ch.Cheong had been arrested unfairly they organized a petition requiring an immediate release. Thanks to the courage of the various organizations, Ch.Cheong`s case was investigated again. After other discussions and trials Ching Cheong was released on 5 February 2008. The Chinese government substantiated it with the coming Chinese New Year holiday.

by Barbora Haramiova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.