Hundreds of journalists in Asia, Europe and the Americas were among those calling for the immediate release of Ching Cheong, chief China correspondent for Singapore's Straits Times newspaper who was arrested in April.

The campaign was launched by international press watchdog Reporters Without Borders and the Hong Kong Journalists Association.

"Ten thousand people worldwide have in less than two weeks demonstrated their wish to back this detained journalist.

"The Chinese government should respond to this appeal and free Ching Cheong," the two groups said in a joint statement Tuesday.

The petition also called on Hong Kong's new leader Donald Tsang to intervene to secure his release. So far the government in the southern Chinese territory has been reluctant to get involved.

Tsang said Tuesday he will raise his case with the Chinese authorities but only "at an appropriate time".

Ching, 55, was arrested in the southern city of Guangzhou on April 22.

Chinese authorities announced last month he was being held on espionage charges but have given few details of the reason for the arrest, saying only he had admitted to spying for "overseas organs" in return for huge sums of money.

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.

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