After the start of the corona pandemic, citizen reporter Zhang Zhan reported from the sealed-off Wuhan. Because of this, the lawyer was sentenced to four years in prison. Activists have now confirmed their release.
After four years in prison, Chinese authorities have released a citizen reporter from prison who reported on the outbreak of the corona pandemic from the sealed-off city of Wuhan and was later convicted by a court.
Supporters of the former lawyer published a video of her on the X platform that night. In it she says: “Hello, I’m Zhang Zhan. At 5 a.m. on May 13, the police took me back to my brother’s apartment in Shanghai.”
Continued under strict surveillance
The now 40-year-old Chinese woman was arrested in May 2020 and sentenced to four years in prison in December 2020 for reporting on the virus outbreak in Wuhan. A court in the eastern Chinese metropolis of Shanghai found her guilty of seeking quarrels and provoking riots.
Her release date was scheduled for May 13th, but since then there has been no trace of the Chinese woman. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) expressed relief at the confirmation of Zhang Zhan’s release, but stressed that she is not truly free and remains under strict surveillance. In addition, the authorities could prevent her from traveling abroad despite having served her sentence.
International calls for release
Zhang was actually a lawyer. After her reports as a citizen reporter, the authorities revoked her license. She made her experiences public, among other things, on the video platform YouTube, which is blocked in China, and the online network X, which was still called Twitter at the time.
According to reports, she went on hunger strike after her arrest in May 2020, was force-fed at times, and at one point only weighed 40 kilograms. Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International’s human rights activists have repeatedly called for their release and international pressure on the Chinese government.
Virus outbreak initially covered up
At the end of 2019, the then still unknown, devastating viral disease Covid-19 appeared in Wuhan and was initially largely covered up. It was only weeks later that a lockdown and China’s rigid zero-Covid strategy followed with tough measures to contain the number of infections, which could hardly be maintained at the beginning of 2022.
In December 2022, the government surprisingly abandoned the much-criticized strategy. The result was a massive Corona wave until the beginning of last year.