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

Posted Monday, November 10, 2025 10:08 am

The journalist Anthony Grey in June 1967 outside his home in Beijing. Shortly after this picture was taken, he was summoned to the foreign ministry and told that he would be confined to his house. He was held in solitary confinement in a room there for two years. (Photo credit: via Grey family)

Adam Nossiter | The New York Times

“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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