Ching, chief China correspondent for Singapore's Straits Times, was arrested in China's southern city Guangzhou in April. Chinese authorities announced last month he was being held on espionage charges.

In advertisements published in three Chinese-language newspapers and with the signatures of 770 former and serving journalists, the Hong Kong Journalists' Association questioned why no evidence had been presented in the case.

"We are very concerned that the experienced journalist Ching Cheong has been under house arrest for over a month by the mainland security department," the petition read.

"We also find it difficult to accept that Mr Ching Cheong was accused of spying by the foreign ministry office without giving any evidence," it said.

Officials have given few details of the reason for their arrest of Ching, saying only he had admitted spying for "overseas organs" in return for huge sums of money.

"We demand the mainland authorities to treat Mr Ching Cheong's case in a fair, open and lawful manner," the petition said.

It also urged the Chinese government to allow Ching, 55, to receive visits from legal aid representatives and his family. And it called on the Hong Kong government to help Ching, a Hong Kong citizen.

The government of Hong Kong, which was returned to Chinese rule in 1997, has been reluctant to get involved in the case.

Hong Kong security chief Ambrose Lee has said meddling would compromise the One Country, Two Systems relationship that allows Hong Kong to operate semi-autonomously from its rulers in China.

Ching's wife, Mary Lau, said she believed his arrest was connected with his attempts to acquire the manuscript of a publication about the late Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang.

Zhao was purged and kept under house arrest for the last 16 years of his life for opposing the brutal military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

The International Federation of Journalists has demanded Ching's immediate release and Reporters Without Borders is holding a global campaign to collect signatures from the public to support him.

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