Freed Aussie exposes China's secret jails
It has been little more than one-and-a-half-years since Cheng Lei landed safely in Australia after spending nearly three in Chinese custody.
She was a prominent business anchor for a Chinese state broadcaster when Ministry of State Security officers unexpectedly raided her Beijing apartment in August, 2020.
After hunting through her belongings and seizing all her electronic devices, they blindfolded Cheng and disappeared her into China's web of secret prisons.
Now a Sky News presenter based in her hometown of Melbourne, Cheng has delved into the brutality of her detention in a documentary for the network titled Cheng Lei: My Story.
She shares heart-wrenching details of the darkest period of her life and offers a rare glimpse into one of the most ruthless justice systems on the planet. Australian journalist Cheng Lei spent nearly six months in solitary confinement in China. Supplied Credit: Supplied
Cheng was held in solitary confinement for nearly six months after being accused of endangering China's national security.
Chinese authorities never fully clarified the allegation, but that did not stop them holding her for 177 days before her official arrest.
'RSDL is the Chinese spelling for hell,' Cheng said in the documentary.
'It stands for Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location, which makes you think it's house arrest.
'But in reality, it's mental torture.'
Little is known about RSDL in China.
But Safeguard Defenders, which tracks disappearances in China, has scraped enough together to paint a deeply disturbing picture.
Detainees are kept at unknown locations for up to six months in cells 'designed to prevent suicide', according to the human rights not-for-profit.
Witnesses have told the group they were denied legal counsel or contact with the outside world and 'regularly subjected to torture and forced to confess' — experiences hauntingly similar to Cheng's.
Faced with a recreation of her cell, Cheng became emotional and said the months she spent inside were 'as close to dying and wanting to die as I ever got'.
'Yeah, this is where I spent six months,' she said as she entered the mock cell.
'Just sitting like this, thinking I was never gonna get out and absolutely helpless.' Cheng was forced to sit in a rigid position for 13 hours every day. NewsWire / Screengrab / Sky News Australia Credit: NewsWire
The room was simple — blank, cream walls, a bed and a stool for the guards that watched over her 24/7.
She was forbidden from talking or making the 'slightest movement', and had to receive permission before so much as scratching herself, she explained.
'So you're in a bare room, and you are guarded and watched at all times by two guards,' Cheng said.
'One stands in front of me, one sits next to me, and they take turns with the standing and sitting.
'I have to sit on the edge of the bed and have my hands on my lap.
'Not allowed to cross the ankles or cross the legs, not allowed to close the eyes, no talking, no laughing, no sunshine, no sky, no exercise, no requests, no colour — just fear, desperation, isolation and utter boredom.'
She says she sat like that for 13 hours each day.
'I hated having to sit still, not being able to do anything,' Cheng said.
'How do they come up with this — just nothingness? Nothingness, but also a sea of pain.
'I had no idea what was happening, or how long I would be here.'
Outside, fierce diplomatic efforts were underway to gain consular access to her, with Australian officials fighting to get information to her loved ones — including her two children in Melbourne — about where she was and what her condition was.
Safeguard Defenders has estimated as many as 113,407 people have been placed into RSDL and later faced trial. Cheng says her time in a secret Chinese prison cell was 'as close to dying and wanting to die as I ever got'. NewsWire / Screengrab / Sky News Australia Credit: NewsWire
After she was formally arrested, Cheng was taken out of RSDL and moved into a larger cell with three other women.
She stayed there for the remainder of her detention.
Cheng and her cellmates were still subjected to 24-hour surveillance, but at least she was not alone, and a clearer picture was forming of what had landed her in custody.
'Eight words'
As a senior journalist working for state media, she had access to Chinese government releases before they were published, including a major announcement that Beijing was not setting a 2020 GDP target due to uncertainty from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Cheng was close friends with a reporter at Bloomberg, Haze Fan.
The journalists shared their sources with each other.
Cheng said Fan had been pushing for a 'series of government reports from me that hadn't been published in order to break the story at Bloomberg'.
'And I wanted to help her, because she had helped me,' Cheng said.
'When I told her the eight words which were 'no growth target', 'GDP', nine million jobs target' at 7:23am, I thought that would help her break the story, which they did.'
She sent the text just seven minutes before the announcement was published.
'The charge was supplying state secrets to foreign entities, which boils down to texting eight words, seven minutes before the embargo (lifted), to my friend at Bloomberg,' Cheng said.
Cheng was detained during a low point in Australia's relationship with China.
Former prime minister Scott Morrison had infuriated Beijing when he backed an inquiry into the origins of coronavirus.
China's ambassador at the time warned Australia's push for a probe was 'dangerous'.
Soon after, tariffs were slapped on Australian goods, leading to a years-long trade war that has only recently eased, with the Albanese government unlocking $20bn worth of trade.
Cheng's incarceration has been broadly seen as being part of China's efforts to pressure Australia.
She was only released as ties with China began to normalise in late 2023.
Cheng made clear the suffering she endured as a pawn in a geopolitical game.
'You don't know if you'll ever see your family again, because you don't know what they (the Chinese government) want,' she said.
'You don't know how everything you've done that you thought was good was now possibly criminal.
'Everything that made you happy or gave you pleasure now just was so far, is so removed from you. It was a cause of pain.'
Cheng Lei: My Story will premiere on Sky News Australia at 7:30pm on Tuesday, June 3.
Cheng Lei: A Memoir Of Freedom by Cheng Lei will be published by HarperCollins on Wednesday, June 4.
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