Chanting "Long live press freedom," a dozen protesters including radical lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung called for the release of Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong-based reporter working as the Straits Times' chief China correspondent.

"Ching Cheong has been detained for eight months now without trial and he has been denied the right to see his wife, family and his lawyer. This cannot be tolerated," Leung said.

"We demand the central government respect human rights and immediately release Ching Cheong."

Ching, 55, has been detained since April but he was not formally arrested until August 5. Under normal circumstances, his case should have been handed over to prosecutors within two months.

The State Council, however, told the Singapore-based Straits Times this month that his detention had been extended by three months.

China's official Xinhua news agency had said Ching set up "a number of channels for espionage" in Hong Kong and mainland China for Taiwanese intelligence between early 2000 and March 2005.

It also said Ching obtained "a great deal of information" on China's political, economic and particularly military affairs.

It accused him of receiving hundreds of thousands of US dollars from Taiwan for his espionage activities, and repeated a Chinese assertion that Ching had confessed.

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