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On New Year’s Eve 2019, the first alarms sounded about a new contagious pneumonia.
China had notified the World Health Organization 27 cases in the city of Wuhan, and the mysterious new disease would continue to spread.
Just a month later, the entire city of millions was shut down. No one was allowed to travel.
Soon, the whole world would know the name of the city on the Yangtze River, which became the epicenter of the pandemic.
Zhang Zhan, citizen journalist in Wuhan, May 3.
Photo: Brochure / ReutersPhoto: Brochure / Reuters
Reported from closed city
It was here that Zhang Zhan, 37, traveled in February, at the height of China’s eruption. He had to document the conditions in the closed city.
The former lawyer expressed his total disagreement with the handling of the epidemic by the authorities.
For several months, he posted critical videos on YouTube and Twitter, platforms that are actually blocked by the “Great Firewall” in China.
The videos showed crowded hospitals, empty stores and desperate residents who feared losing their livelihoods due to strict restrictions.
Zhang Zhan regularly posted videos about the eruption in Wuhan.
But in May there was silence.
“The government’s way of governing this city has been through intimidation and threats,” he said in the latest video posted on YouTube, according to The New York Times.
– It is the tragedy of this country, he says.
It was later revealed that she had been arrested and brought back to her hometown of Shanghai. Where she was accused of inciting conflict and causing problems in the first chaotic phase of the outbreak.
On Monday she was sentenced to four years in prison.
Citizen journalist Zhang Zhan in front of a store in Wuhan on April 11.
Photo: APPhoto: AP
Force feeding through the nose
In protest of the arrest, Zhang has been on a hunger strike since June. According to her advocates, she must have been force-fed through a tube into her nose, NTB writes.
His hands had to be tied tightly so that the pipe was not removed, according to the lawyers.
“Zhang Zhan was devastated when the verdict was read,” one of his defenders, Ren Quanniu, said on Monday.
– When I visited her last week, she told me that if she receives a long sentence, she will go on a hunger strike until the last moment. She is convinced that she will die in prison, Ren said before the trial began.
-It is an extreme form of protest against this society and the situation, he added.
Chinese police prevent journalists from filming outside the courthouse where Zhang Zhan was sentenced to prison on December 29.
Photo: Leo Ramirez / AFPPhoto: Leo Ramirez / AFP
Several lost
To date, Chinese authorities have punished nine whistleblowers in an attempt to avoid criticism of the authorities’ handling of the outbreak.
But the case against Zhang is the first against a journalist.
Three others – Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua, who reported from Wuhan, were reported missing in February, according to The New York Times.
Chen Quishi and Li Zehua were subsequently counted. But Fang Bin is still missing.
Fang Bin disappeared in February after reporting from Wuhan and remains missing.
Photo: Isaac Lawrence / AFPPhoto: Isaac Lawrence / AFP
The doctor who warned the world
Li Wenliang, the Chinese doctor who became known for trying to warn about the outbreak, died from the virus.
The deaths rarely led to large-scale protests on social media in China.
Several months later, he still remembers the popular Weibo website, where he was an active user himself.
Li Wenliang memorial service in Hong Kong, February 7.
Photo: Kin Cheung / APPhoto: Kin Cheung / AP
His last post was published on February 1, according to Politico.
He wrote: – Today the nucleic acid test came back positive. The dust has settled and the diagnosis has finally been confirmed.
Li died just a week later. He turned 34, leaving a pregnant wife and a five-year-old son.
In June, the wife gave birth to a new baby.
The treatment of Li and seven other doctors who reported on the virus drew strong criticism from authorities.
The doctors were brought in by the police and accused of having contributed to social unrest, after discussing on social networks what they thought was a new virus similar to sars.
They were forced to sign that they would no longer commit “illegal acts” and speak publicly about the virus, according to NTB.
China’s Supreme Court later criticized the Wuhan police for treating the doctors. And a public investigation found that they were being treated unfairly.
– Will verify history
– It is important that the Chinese authorities have control over the story that emerges. On how they handled the crisis, which constitutes an epidemic, says Mette Halskov Hansen, professor of Chinese studies at the University of Oslo for the NRK.
Mette Halskov Hansen, professor of Chinese studies at the University of Oslo.
Photo: UiO
In addition to reporting the events from the ground, Zhang Zhan came up with direct political criticism in his videos.
– And he is often defeated, says Halskov Hansen.
– It is very clear that now they want to set an example. To show that one should be very careful when reporting on their own from hospitals or areas where strict measures have been put in place to control, for example, the virus, he says.
A hospital employee greets from an isolation room at the Red Cross Hospital in Wuhan on March 10.
Photo: Str / AFPPhoto: Str / AFP
WHO to Wuhan
The verdict against Zhang Zhan comes just weeks before a WHO group travels to Wuhan to investigate the origin of the virus.
This is likely to happen during the first week of January, according to Michael Ryan, WHO’s crisis director.
The WHO emphasizes that the experts will be able to investigate the case completely free of charge and without interference.
– That is the objective of the trip, to get to the place where the virus attacked humans for the first time. Of course, we will cooperate with our Chinese colleagues, but we will not be monitored by Chinese officials, he says.
The WHO has been trying for several months to gain access to travel to Wuhan.
– These researchers will have a somewhat difficult job. For example, because the markets where the virus is believed to have originated were closed and cleaned up early in the pandemic, Halskov Hansen says.
A security guard stands in front of a fish market in Wuhan, where the virus was discovered in January.
Photo: Héctor Retamal / AFPPhoto: Héctor Retamal / AFP
But he points out that the Chinese authorities have an interest in finding out where this virus came from.
– They see this as a big problem and China is not at all interested in new viruses appearing. At the same time, they hope it turns out that the virus did not originate in China, he says.
The question of the origin of the virus has become highly politicized since the start of the pandemic. And especially after US President Donald Trump pointed the finger at China and blamed the virus.
– For political leaders, it has become important to show that they are in control or to distribute the blame, says Halskov Hansen.
– Therefore, one can have a certain justified fear of the freedom with which the WHO group can work in China. But the hope is that the health aspects are, after all, crucial. Rather than being the politicians’ interpretations of reality that will take us further, he says.
