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Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer-turned-citizen journalist, was sentenced to 4 years in prison for live coverage of the Covid-19 crisis from Wuhan. The judgment of the Shanghai court, matured after a brief hearing, motivated the guilt for having “raised fights and caused problems” as a result of the denunciation of the initial events of the pandemic when, in the city of the virus outbreak, there was talk of “mysterious pneumonia”. .
The 37-year-old Zhang’s reports were shared on social media in February, drawing the attention of authorities.
Controlling the flow of information during the Covid-19 crisis was essential for the Chinese authorities to define the narrative of the events in their favor, despite the initial uncertainties whose reporting had serious consequences.
“Zhang Zhan looked devastated upon reading the sentence,” Ren Quanniu, one of Zhang’s defense lawyers, said, according to local media, confirming the four-year prison sentence in front of the Shanghai Pudong People’s Court. The woman is in worrying health due to the hunger strike that began in June that led to force-feeding through a nasal tube. The sentence matured a few weeks after the arrival of the international team of WHO experts in China to investigate the origins of Covid-19. Zhang criticized Wuhan’s response, writing in February that the government “did not provide the people with enough information, so it simply blockaded the city. This is a major violation of human rights.”
Zhang was the first to have a trial in the group of 4 citizen journalists, Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua, detained by authorities earlier this year for covering the events in Wuhan.
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