Anthony Grey, journalist held hostage by China for two years, dies at 87

A correspondent for Reuters, he became a global symbol of China’s isolation and of the anti-foreigner hysteria spawned by its Cultural Revolution

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“Today it is 19 months!” the British journalist Anthony Grey wrote in his diary in Beijing on Feb. 21, 1969, as guards hovered nearby.

The headline-making ordeal of Mr. Grey, alone and confined to a room eight feet square in what had been his house, continued for nearly eight more months — part of China’s retaliation after the British colonial authorities in Hong Kong imprisoned eight pro-China journalists accused of participating in anti-British riots on the island. ...

Mr. Grey died on Oct. 11 in a nursing home in Norwich, England. He was 87. Reuters, which announced his death, said he had Parkinson’s disease.

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