Mon 28 December 2020:
Zhang Zhan is one of a number of people facing trial for exposing the initial chaos of Wuhan’s COVID-19 response.
A Chinese citizen journalist held since May for her livestream reporting from Wuhan as the COVID-19 outbreak unfolded was sentenced to four years in prison on Monday, almost a year after details of an “unknown viral pneumonia” surfaced in the central China city.
Zhang Zhan, 37, the first such person known to have been tried, was among a handful of people whose firsthand accounts from crowded hospitals and empty streets painted a more dire picture of the pandemic epicentre than the official narrative.
“We will probably appeal,” the lawyer, Ren Quanniu, told Reuters, adding that the trial at a court in Pudong, a district of China’s business hub of Shanghai, ended at 12.30 p.m. local time, with Zhang being sentenced to four years.
“Zhang Zhan looked devastated when the sentence was announced,” Ren Quanniu, one of Zhang’s defence lawyers, told reporters confirming the four year jail term outside Shanghai Pudong New District People’s Court on Monday morning.
Her mother sobbed loudly as the verdict was read, Ren added.
Zhang Zhan, 37, whose firsthand accounts from crowded hospitals and empty streets painted a more dire picture of the pandemic epicentre than the official narrative.
Beijing has congratulated itself for “extraordinary” success in controlling the virus inside its borders, with an economy on the rebound while much of the rest of the world suffers through painful lockdowns and surging caseloads a year since the first cases of the then unknown virus emerged in Wuhan.
About a dozen supporters and diplomats gathered outside Shanghai Pudong New District People’s Court on Monday morning, but police pushed journalists and observers away from the entrance as the defendant and her lawyer arrived.
V heavy security presence outside Shanghai Pudong court as Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan #张展 was just sentenced to 4 years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” her lawyers said. After the verdict was announced, Zhang’s mother sobbed loudly in court. pic.twitter.com/IsldHgh0l8
— Laurie Chen (@lauriechenwords) December 28, 2020
A former lawyer, Zhang arrived in Wuhan on Feb. 1 from her home in Shanghai.
Her short video clips uploaded to YouTube consist of interviews with residents, commentary and footage of a crematorium, train stations, hospitals and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Detained in mid-May, Zhang, who is 37, began a hunger strike in June, according to her lawyers, and has been force-fed via a nasal tube as concerns grow about her health.
Video of #ZhangZhan
A citizen journalist , who reported about the coronavirus from Wuhan during the lockdown, was sentenced to four years in jail under the crime of “picking quarrels and provoking troubles” today . pic.twitter.com/w6SH0C8foy— INDEPENDENT PRESS (@IpIndependent) December 28, 2020
“She said when I visited her (last week): ‘If they give me a heavy sentence then I will refuse food until the very end’… She thinks she will die in prison,” Ren said.
“It’s an extreme method of protesting against this society and this environment.”
The trial comes just weeks before an international team of World Health Organization experts is expected to arrive in China to investigate the origins of the pandemic.
Human rights groups have also drawn attention to Zhang’s case.
Authorities “want to use her case as an example to scare off other dissidents from raising questions about the pandemic situation in Wuhan earlier this year,” said Leo Lan, research and advocacy consultant at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders NGO.
