Song Yongyi an American university academic was arrested...

Song Yongyi an American university academic was arrested after he uncovered evidence of atrocities during the Cultural Revolution. Song, a historian and librarian at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, was accused of "the illegal purchase and provision of intelligence to bodies outside China". The charge carries a jail sentence of three to 10 years and, in extreme cases, a life sentence or even the death penalty. Song was detained in Beijing in August 1999, a month before he was due to get American citizenship. At the time he was collecting documents dating from the Sixties and Seventies, during which Mao Tse-tung terrorised China. Washington was urging Song's immediate release, a spokesman for the American Embassy in Beijing said. It was reported that Song uncovered material about Chou En-lai, Mao's prime minister, whom official history paints as an almost saintly figure.