Prominent Journalist Detained Since April

China has detained a prominent journalist who traveled to the mainland to obtain a collection of secret interviews with a Communist leader purged for opposing the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

Ching Cheong, chief China correspondent for Singapore’s Straits Times and a Hong Kong citizen, was detained April 22 in Guangzhou, where he was to meet a source, his wife said.

Mary Lau said Chinese officials had warned her and the newspaper not to disclose the detention. She finally decided to speak out after a mainland official told her that Beijing was preparing to charge him with “stealing core state secrets.”