[ad_1]
During a brief hearing in the Shanghai court, former lawyer Zhang Zhan was found guilty of covering events at the beginning of a chaotic outbreak. The court found her guilty of “pretext to argue and incite disturbances.”
Her reports and live articles were widely shared on social media in February, putting the journalist in the spotlight. So far, Chinese authorities have punished eight of those speakers to silence criticism of their response to the outbreak.
VIDEO: The danger recedes: Wuhan is already preparing to return to a normal life
One year after the start of the pandemic in Wuhan, Beijing is praised for its “extraordinary” success in controlling the spread of the virus on its territory, recovering the Chinese economy while the rest of the world is forced to announce tedious quarantines and struggles. against increasing morbidity.
Controlling the flow of information during an unprecedented global health crisis was a decisive factor in allowing the Chinese communist government to rewrite the narrative in its favor.
This means that all critics who question the official version of events have to pay dearly for disobedience.
“Zhang Zhan seemed surprised by the sentence,” one of the convicted lawyers, Ren Quanniu, told reporters early Monday at Shanghai’s New Pudong District People’s Court, confirming that his client was being sent to prison for four years.
The lawyer added that Zhang Zhan’s mother was quietly crying as she announced the verdict.
VIDEO: The empty streets of Wuhan
The health of the 37-year-old journalist, who went on a hunger strike in June and was force-fed through a tube inserted into his nose, is a growing concern.
“She said when I visited her [praėjusią savaitę]”If I am sentenced to a severe sentence, I will refuse the food to the end” … She believes that she will die in prison, “Ren Quanniu said before the trial.
“This is an extreme form of protesting against this society and the environment,” he added.
China’s communist government often non-transparently judges dissidents between Christmas and New Years to avoid the attention of Western states.
The hearing took place as experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) prepare to arrive in China in a few weeks to conduct an investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Another lawyer said that Zhang Zhan’s health was deteriorating, with headaches and abdominal pain, as well as dizziness.
“Being isolated 24 hours a day, she cannot even go to the bathroom without help,” Zhang Keke wrote in a post on social media after visiting a journalist on Christmas Day.
“She feels psychologically exhausted, as if every day they are suffering for her,” added the lawyer.
Zhang Zhan criticized the actions of the Wuhan authorities at the beginning of the outbreak. In an article published in February, he said the government “did not provide enough information to the people and then simply quarantined the entire city.”
“This is a flagrant violation of human rights,” wrote the journalist.
According to Zhang Keke, the court ruled that he distributed “false statements” online.
The case presented by Zhang Zhan is also criticized by human rights organizations.
The authorities “want to use his case as an example to dissuade other dissidents from asking about the pandemic situation in Wuhan earlier this year,” said activist Leo Lan of the NGO Human Rights Defenders of China.
Zhang Zhan is the first of four indicted civil journalism activists who were detained by the police earlier this year for their work in Wuhan.
Previous attempts by AFP to contact three other journalists, Chen Qiushi, Fang Binu and Li Zehua, were unsuccessful.
[ad_2]
