A veteran Chinese journalist has been detained by police in Beijing on charges of leaking state secrets to a foreign website, just weeks ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Gao Yu, 70, was placed under “criminal detention” on April 24, China’s official news agency Xinhua said, after her home in the capital was raided.
State broadcaster CCTV showed a woman reported to be Gao, but whose face was blurred, apparently confessing to the crimes and expressing remorse.
“I think what I did touched on the law and endangered the interests of the nation. What I have done was very wrong,” the woman said. “I have sincerely learned my lesson and also wish to admit guilt.”
Her arrest is the latest incident in a crackdown on dissident voices ahead of the politically sensitive June 4 anniversary. Gao was herself imprisoned immediately before the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators, in which hundreds of people were killed.
Prominent human-rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang and four others who joined an April 26 meeting in Beijing, which Gao was also due to attend, have also been detained for subversive activities.
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Write to Charlie Campbell at charlie.campbell@time.com