Former Guangming Daily Commentary Department Deputy Director Dong Yuyu, Sentenced to 7 Years, Ordered to Resume Prison Labor After Cancer Surgery

(Rights Defense Network Information Center report) On November 6, 2026, this outlet learned that, according to a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 64-year-old Dong Yuyu underwent surgery to remove a cancerous lung tumor in August this year and was ordered to resume prison labor on October 12 for about 40 hours a week. His family says his health is deteriorating. The authorities should immediately stop requiring Dong Yuyu to perform labor that could endanger his health and ensure that he receives adequate medical care.

Dong Yuyu biography:

• Born in 1962, he is from Fushun, Liaoning Province, and was a witness to the June Fourth events. He was a former visiting scholar at Harvard University in the United States, Keio University in Japan, and Hokkaido University in Japan; deputy director of the commentary department at Guangming Daily; a liberal thinker; and a political prisoner in China.
• He studied in the law department at Peking University in his early years and joined Guangming Daily after graduating in 1987;
• In 1989, he was sent down for a year for taking part in the June Fourth protests, then returned to Guangming Daily. He also wrote for the domestic history magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu and wrote commentary for the Chinese-language website of The New York Times;
• In 2006, he received a Nieman Fellowship from Harvard University in the United States and spent a year as a visiting scholar there. He later also served as a visiting scholar at Keio University and Hokkaido University in Japan;
• On February 21, 2022, he was suddenly taken away by police for questioning after having lunch with a Japanese diplomat at Beijing’s Xinqiao Hotel. The diplomat was also taken away and released several hours later, but Dong was detained for an extended period; the alleged offense was unclear. That day, the Japanese government immediately protested the incident, while the Chinese government responded that the two had been investigated and detained because they had engaged in activities “inconsistent” with their work;
• After he had been detained for more than a year, on March 23, 2023, his family finally received notice from Beijing police, who said he had been formally arrested on suspicion of “espionage” and indicted by a Beijing municipal procuratorate. His case was soon transferred to a Beijing court for trial. His family insisted that he was neither a spy nor a foreign agent. Seeking justice, family members who had previously chosen to remain silent decided to make the matter public;
• It is understood that since his detention, his family has not been allowed to see him, and his attorney has met with him only once. To date, the specific date of his trial remains unclear. He is currently being held at a detention center in southern Beijing.

On November 29, 2024, Dong Yuyu was sentenced by the Chinese Communist Party authorities to seven years in prison for “espionage.” His sentence runs until February 20, 2029. On November 13, 2025, the appeal was decided: the appeal was rejected and the original judgment upheld. On March 17, 2026, he was transferred to Tianjin Chaobai Prison to serve his sentence.

This outlet will continue to follow Mr. Dong Yuyu’s conditions in prison.