Ching Cheong Case: Verdict & Unanswered Questions
Frontpage of Hong Kong newspaper, am730, where the headline writes: "Ching Cheong sentenced for five years. Family had a hard time believing, decided to appeal."
Uploaded by 1of@kind on 1 Sep '06, 10.31am PDT
Update: Danwei has translated the court's verdict into English.
One of the many comments over at Sidekick's blog: "Five years for a spy perhaps is a bit too easy too light, but five years for no reason is so scary!"
The Standard:
"In jailing Ching for five years, a Beijing court alluded to a 2004 seminar he had attended in Taiwan during which he was said to have met two agents, though it did not specifically name the foundation.
The court further stated that the agents paid Ching HK$300,000 in exchange for information he sent to the foundation through facsimile and e-mail between May 2004 and April 2005."
Interlocals:
"Has Ching Cheong really sold out national security information? (Who will take up such dangerous task for getting 300 thousands yuan?) What are the bases for national security police to detain him? Why secret trial? etc. All these have become secondary issues.
After reading the news report of Ching Cheong's sentence, all of us become angry and scornful towards the national security department and the court. Worse still, the hope of pursuing ideal ending is passing away. We, then, return to "the context of reality", "constructively" ask "so what? can we still negotiate?"
Such kind of returning to the reality, is a giving up of original problems, the problems keep deferring and deferring, wandering round and round, unresolved.
We need to borrow Zizek's slogan here: Let's be realists, let's demand the impossible! -- release Ching Cheong !!"
The Standard:
"Local political commentator Lau Yui-siu said he and other mainland journalists, including Xinhua News Agency reporters, had met the foundation's members in the past for normal academic exchanges. He hoped that what were now normal communications would not be distorted as a result of the cross-strait rivalry.
"If the foundation is classified as a spy group, then it could also be said that the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is an intelligence agency," Lau added. "
