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The Telegraph
Chinese citizen journalist jailed for four years for reports on Wuhan coronavirus
A Chinese court sentenced a citizen journalist to four years in prison on Monday for her uncensored reporting from Wuhan during the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak. Zhang Zhan, 37, appeared in court in Shanghai in a wheelchair due to deteriorating health. She began a hunger strike in late June to protest her detention and has been force-fed through a nasal tube, according to her lawyers. Ms. Zhang was found guilty of starting disputes and causing trouble after a short hearing, according to one of her defense attorneys, Ren Quanniu. She had faced up to five years for the charge, which authorities regularly use to detain activists and other dissidents. “She said when I visited her (last week): ‘If they give me a severe sentence, I will refuse the food until the end.’ … She thinks she will die in jail, ”Ren told the AFP news agency. “It is an extreme method of protesting against this society and this environment,” he added. Ms Zhang, a former attorney, traveled 500 miles from Shanghai to Wuhan in early February to see for herself what was happening at the epicenter of the coronavirus. She was a source of uncensored first-hand information amid tightly-controlled state media reports on the virus. He chronicled the chaotic early stages and the experiences of the residents. He posted reports and live-streamed scenes of the city on WeChat, Facebook and Twitter, including evidence of crematoria operating at midnight as the death toll rose. It also reported on the harassment by the authorities of the victims’ families and the arrests of other citizen journalists. She disappeared in mid-May and was later accused of spreading false information, giving interviews to foreign media, disturbing public order and “maliciously manipulating” the outbreak. In June, he went on a hunger strike to protest his arrest. Earlier this month, one of her attorneys said she was forced to wear a 24-hour belt that restrained her hands to prevent the feeding tubes from being pulled out and that she needed help getting to the bathroom. The ruling Communist Party controls the media in China and seeks to censor information it does not want released. In the early stages of the outbreak, authorities punished several Wuhan doctors for “spreading rumors” after they alerted their friends to a mysterious pneumonia circulating in the city. The best known of them, Li Wenliang, later died of Covid-19. The Chinese authorities have detained several activists and citizen journalists who reported on the outbreak. While some have been released, others remain in detention or their whereabouts are unknown. Since early December, the authorities have detained more activists and journalists “without providing any credible information to suggest that these people have committed legally recognizable crimes,” Human Rights Watch said Saturday. He called on the authorities to “drop all unfounded charges and immediately and unconditionally release those unjustly detained.” After the first missteps and accusations of covering up the initial outbreak, China has since controlled Covid-19 largely within its borders. Chinese authorities insist they responded promptly during their critical first weeks and bought time for the rest of the world to prepare. State media have attributed China’s success in controlling the virus to the leadership of President Xi Jinping and have pushed theories that the virus may have been circulating outside of China before the outbreak in Wuhan. However, the government has stymied efforts for any independent investigation into the source of the virus, which has now infected more than 80 million people worldwide and killed nearly 1.8 million. A team from the World Health Organization will travel to Wuhan next month to investigate.
