Australian journalist Cheng Lei jailed in China tells of standing in sunlight for just 10 hours each year

Chinese-Australian journalist Cheng Lei has spoken out about the harsh conditions of her detention. Photo / AP

A Chinese-Australian journalist who worked for China’s state broadcaster and was convicted on murky espionage charges has spoken out about her detention conditions, including being able to stand in sunlight for just 10 hours a year.

In a letter to the Australian public on the three-year anniversary of her detention, journalist Cheng Lei voices her love for her adopted country. After being found guilty of national security charges at a closed-door trial last year, Cheng has yet to be sentenced.

“I relive every bushwalk, river, lake, beach with swims and picnics and psychedelic sunsets, sky that is lit up with stars, and the silent and secret symphony of the bush,” Cheng said, in the letter shared by her partner, Nick Coyle. She hasn’t seen a tree since she was detained, she wrote, and she misses the sun.

“In my cell, the sunlight shines through the window but I can stand in it for only 10 hours a year.”

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the nation would continue to support Cheng and her family and advocate for her interests and wellbeing.

“Ms Cheng’s message to the public makes clear her deep love for our country,” Wong said in a statement. “All Australians want to see her reunited with her children.”

Wong said Australia had consistently advocated for Cheng and “asked that basic standards of justice, procedural fairness and humane treatment be met for Ms Cheng, in accordance with international norms”.

Coyle said Cheng had been allowed to write to him since last September in an interview with the national broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Each month, Cheng is allowed a 30-minute visit by an Australian consular official, who can bring her letters. Cheng is being kept in a detention facility under the Ministry of State Security, Coyle said. He said the most difficult thing for her was the toll that the long-term separation from her children was taking.

In the three years since Cheng has been taken, her daughter entered high school, while her son is about to, he said.

“It is the Chinese in me that has probably gone beyond the legal limit of sentimentality. Most of all, I miss my children,” Cheng wrote.

Cheng, 48, moved with her family to Australia at age 10. She returned to China to work for the international department of state broadcaster CCTV. The details behind her detention and trial remain sealed. Chinese prosecutors have broad powers to level charges of spying or leaking state secrets with little or no evidence, and Cheng could face years of prison.

Chinese authorities have also been accused of holding foreign nationals, particularly those born in the country, to obtain diplomatic gains or the return of Chinese citizens abroad wanted on a variety of charges. China’s relations with Australia have been on the mend with Australia’s new administration, after China put them on freeze over Canberra’s accusations of Chinese political interference and intimidation of the local Chinese community, as well as an investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 virus.

Coyle said although he hopes the case is divorced from politics, its resolution could help the relationship between the countries.

“I think resolving it would improve the atmospherics around the bilateral relationship and enable a focus on the positive aspects that a relationship would bring, we all want to see that.”