By Yew Lun Tian
BEIJING (Reuters) – A Bloomberg News staff member in China who was detained in late 2020 was released on bail early this year, according to a statement by the Chinese embassy in Washington that was dated last month and reported by the news organisation on Tuesday.
New York-based Bloomberg said in a Tuesday news report that it was made aware of the embassy statement over the weekend, and that it has not been able to contact the staffer, Haze Fan.
Fan, a Chinese national who was working in the Bloomberg bureau in Beijing, was detained in December 2020 and was formally arrested in July 2021 on suspicion of committing crimes endangering national security.
The Chinese embassy statement, dated May 6, said Fan was released on bail in January pending trial, and that her case remained under investigation.
“The Fan case has nothing to do with her status as a foreign media employee,” the embassy’s statement said.
China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
“We are encouraged that Haze is out on bail,” John Micklethwait, Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief, was quoted as saying in the report. “We will continue to do everything possible to help her and her family.”
A Bloomberg spokesman said the company had no further comment.
Before her detention, Fan was last seen in December 2020 being escorted from her apartment building by plainclothes security officials.
Fan had joined Bloomberg in 2017 and previously worked for Reuters, as well as for CNBC, Al Jazeera and CBS News.
In March, a court in Beijing heard the case of Chinese-born Australian journalist Cheng Lei, who is accused of providing state secrets to a foreign country.
Cheng, a television anchor for Chinese state-run broadcaster CGTN, was detained in August 2020 and formally arrested a year ago. A verdict in her trail was deferred.
(Reporting by Yew Lun Tian; Editing by Tony Munroe and Alex Richardson)
