When Wuhan – then the centre of the Covid-19 outbreak in China – went into lockdown, Zhang Zhan was one of the few citizen journalists to report on the unfolding crisis.
Determined to get the truth out, the former lawyer traveled to the beleaguered city in February 2020. She took to social media, reporting how government officials had detained independent reporters and harassed families of Covid-19 patients. Citizen journalists were the only source of uncensored, first-hand information about the epidemic.
Working independently of state-controlled media, citizen journalists face constant harassment for exposing information the government would rather keep quiet.
Zhan went missing in Wuhan in May 2020. Authorities later confirmed that she had been held by police in Shanghai, 640km away. In June 2020, she began a hunger strike to protest her detention.
In December, her body was so weak she had to attend her court hearing in a wheelchair. The judge sentenced her to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”.
Zhan was determined to speak truth to power. She reported on government officials detaining independent reporters and harassing patients’ families. At the time citizen journalists were the only source of uncensored, first-hand information about the epidemic, and they faced constant harassment for exposing things the government wanted kept quiet.
Now Zhan is locked up in Shanghai Women’s Prison and refused visits from her family. Nevertheless, she remains determined. “We should seek the truth and seek it at all costs,” Zhan has said. “Truth has always been the most expensive thing in the world. It is our life.”
Zhan’s situation is more critical than ever. She has remained on a partial hunger strike in protest of her incarceration and is at risk of dying if she is not urgently released to receive medical treatment. Her family say they do not expect her to live through the winter if she is not released on medical grounds.
Zhan’s lawyer and family don’t expect her to live through winter and applied for her urgent release on medical grounds more than 3 weeks ago. They are still waiting for a response. Amnesty International urged Chinese authorities to accept the application of medical bail before she dies in the prison.
