Australian journalist Cheng Lei spent almost three years in China’s prison system for breaking an embargo by a few minutes, she has revealed in her first interview after returning home to Melbourne last week.
Cheng, 48, was working as a business reporter for China’s state-run English-language TV station CGTN when she was arrested on 13 August 2020.
Cheng told Sky News on Tuesday night about how the lights were always on in her cell and for the first six months she lived in total isolation.
Her charges were never made public, and although she said she was not allowed to divulge details, she had shared a government briefing before she went on air, breaking an embargo by a few minutes.
“In China, that is a big sin,” Cheng said. “You have hurt the motherland. And the state authority has been eroded because of you.
“What seems innocuous to us here, and it’s not limited to embargos but many other things, are not in China.”
She said when she was arrested, a senior colleague called her saying she was needed in the office for a “very important meeting”. When she arrived in the room, there were 20 people there – one of them stood up, presented his badge and took her back to her apartment.
“They looked for evidence all day,” she said.
As they were leaving she was told to turn off the power and water before asking her ‘Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?’
“So I made myself a homemade bread, toasted sandwich, with cheese and avocado,” she said.
“And those three things I ended up not having for over three years.”
Cheng went into a system known as “residential surveillance at a designated location”, a network of prisons for people viewed as security threats. Inside the system, victims are often subjected to interrogations and sleep deprivation.
“It’s to make you feel isolated and bored and pained and desperate,” she said.
In the final month of isolation, she was not allowed to read or write, and so spent every day sitting in her small dark room.
“They say that they gave me 15 minutes of fresh air, but all they meant was, there’s a window up the top that a guard would open for 15 minutes,” she said.
“But the curtains are still drawn while the windows are open. You never saw anything except the blue curtains, the … carpet and the beige padded walls. It was just silence.”
To pass the time she translated poems in her head, had conversations with her partner, Nick Coyle, and made up a radio station called “coffin FM”.
“Because that’s what it felt like. I was buried alive.”
After six months she was transferred to a separate prison, where she had a cellmate, with whom she could speak Cantonese.
Cheng tried to teach herself Italian, Spanish and Japanese and was allowed to read books Nick sent her.
“I built up a stash of over 200 books. And I used to think ‘wow, this is a book that Nick has lovingly chosen for me’ and has held in his hand,” she said.
“I would just caress the book and keep it close to me. And when there were wise words or encouraging words, I would feel that he had written them.”
Cheng said she could feel a change in the way she was treated after the Labor party came to government, and Australia’s previously frosty relationship with China started to thaw.
She broke down as she spoke about seeing her children and mother for the first time on Wednesday. They ate at a Vietnamese restaurant, and Cheng spent the week doing the school run and adjusting to life back home.
“Every time I look at the sky, I can’t believe… it’s 360 degrees, as opposed to just a little slip up the top of the cell,” she said.
Last week, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said Cheng’s return was not part of a deal struck with Beijing and her release followed the completion of China’s judicial process.
The federal government continues to advocate for the release of Australian writer and activist Yang Hengjun, whose health is deteriorating.
He has been detained since January 2019 and continues to await a verdict in his case with his judgment deferred.
Australian Associated Press also contributed to this report.
