Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao confirmed today that Chinese-American librarian Song Yongyi had been arrested for taking state secrets about the Cultural Revolution out of China.

According to Zhu, the Dickinson College librarian has been receiving financial aid from foreign organizations since 1996 to purchase large amounts of state secrets and documents expressly prohibited from being taken out of the country about the Cultural Revolution. The material Song purchased spanned from 1966 to 1982, well past the time period of the Cultural Revolution.

Song has already sent more than 320 kilograms of classified documents abroad. After he returned to China on July 6, 1999 to purchase more documents and send them abroad, the Chinese authorities apprehended him. He was detained August 7, 1999 and formally charged December 14.

China scholars in the United States and other countries have signed a petition urging the Chinese government to release Song.