Imprisoned in China: Federal government demands the release of blogger

Chinese blogger Zhang was arrested in May 2020 for independently reporting on the corona pandemic outbreak in Wuhan. In the meantime, the federal government is also campaigning for her to be released.

After international organizations such as Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders, the German government is now also campaigning for the blogger Zhang Zhan, who has been imprisoned in China, to be released. The Foreign Office has that ARD radio studio Shanghai confirmed. The German Embassy in China has turned to the Chinese Foreign Ministry and demanded the “immediate release” of Zhang, according to the Foreign Office.

The background to this is the poor health of the 38-year-olds. She has lost a lot of weight and is weakened after a week-long hunger strike. According to her family, Zhang’s life is in danger and may not survive the coming winter.

Zhang reported critically from Wuhan

The blogger was one of the few Chinese journalists who was in Wuhan, central China, at the beginning of 2020 and who reported on the crisis management of the authorities shortly after the start of the corona pandemic without government guidelines. She was arrested in May 2020 for her critical articles and sentenced to four years in prison around six months later. The procedure took place without adherence to the rule of law and largely in camera.

According to a report by Deutsche Welle, Zhang’s mother turned to the authorities in Shanghai yesterday, where the 38-year-old is in prison. The mother has therefore officially requested that her daughter be released on parole for medical reasons.

In the past few days, the US government, the European Union and international organizations such as Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International have also called for Zhang’s release. China’s state and party leadership rejected the demands of the non-governmental organizations as “anti-China political manipulation”.

Several journalists in prison

Zhang is not the only journalist in China in prison for critical reports on the authorities’ corona crisis management. In the weeks and months after the outbreak of the pandemic in Wuhan, the communist leadership arrested at least three other Chinese people who had independently reported on the events on the ground.

According to the organization Reporters Without Borders, there are only three countries in the world that have less freedom of the press than China: Turkmestian, Eritrea and North Korea.