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Yang Hengjun: Australian writer detained in China vows to ‘fight to the end’
- Yang was formally charged with suspicion of espionage in March this year. Australia has strongly objected to the indictment
- The prominent blogger was intercepted by security officials at Guangzhou airport as he arrived on a visit from New York
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Australian writer Yang Hengjun, detained by Chinese authorities for 18 months, has told family he has refused to make a false confession, as his case appears to move closer to trial.
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Yang’s lawyer was on Thursday allowed access to the Beijing detention facility where the 55-year-old writer is being held, for the first time since he was detained in January 2019, friends said.
Yang was formally charged with suspicion of espionage in March this year. Australia has strongly objected to the indictment.
“I am innocent and will fight to the end,” Yang said in a message to his family, according to a friend, the University of Technology Sydney Professor Feng Chongyi.
“I will never confess to something I haven’t done,” he said in the message, a friend of Yang’s, Feng said.
Relations between Australia and China have become increasingly strained, and Beijing has said it was angered by Australia’s call for an inquiry into the source of the coronavirus pandemic.
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