On December 28, a court in Shanghai, China sentenced citizen journalist Zhang Zhan to four years in prison for her reporting on the initial COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan China.
Zhan was charged under article 293 of the 1997 revision of the People's Republic of China's Penal Code — “Picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”
In early February 2019, Zhang Zhan had travelled from Shanghai to Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak. a Washington, DC based watchdog Chinese Human Rights Defenders, using Wechat, Twitter, and YouTube Zhang reported “numerous stories including the detentions of other independent reporters and harassment of families of victims.” She was arrested on May 15.
Following an international condemnation of Zhang’s imprisonment, editor-in-chief of the Chinese state-run Global Times newspaper Hu Xijin claimed, that Zhang had gone to Wuhan only to “make trouble.” He said she was not a citizen journalist, but a “paranoid poisoned whisperer” who used “inflammatory headlines” in order to gain attention.
The “micro-views and emotional clues” present in her reporting amounted to “a major distortion of Wuhan's actual battle against the epidemic,” Hu wrote in an editorial piece published on December 29.
“In fact, during Wuhan's lockdown, many journalists were there reporting the real situation. Various kinds of videos were constantly released by ordinary residents on social media platforms … Meanwhile, some of the articles and photos got the situation wrong, sparking fierce controversy. But apart from the online squabble, none led to serious consequences. Why was Zhang the only one sentenced to 4-year imprisonment for picking quarrels and provoking trouble?”
The claim that no other journalist and citizen faced consequences for documenting the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan is false. While the information coming out of China is limited, there are several known cases when people were arrested for their reports or social media posts. At least three have disappeared, and one person has not yet resurfaced.
Among them are citizen journalists Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin, and Li Zehua, all of whom went missing after documenting the situation on the ground in Wuhan. Their reporting included footage of packed hospitals and workers purportedly transporting the corpses of COVID-19 victims.
Chen Qiushi, a former human rights lawyer and video journalist, disappeared for seven months after going to Wuhan in late January to document the realities of the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan. In a final video message posted in February, Chen stated that he was not afraid of the Community Party of China and would continue to report on what he saw in the city.
According to associates, at his parents’ house in September. Despite not being charged, Chen reportedly remains under the of authorities.
, formally an employee of state-run CCTV, traveled to Wuhan to find Chen Qiushi and to document the outbreak. He filmed part of a car chase with authorities and his subsequent detention by police in February. Li reappeared nearly two months later explaining his absence as an extended quarantine.
Li praised the police for caring about him “very much.”
Meanwhile, Fang Bin, a Chinese businessman and citizen journalist, has not been heard from since being arrested on February 9. Fang also published videos purportedly showing patients suffering from COVID-19 in a hospital and a van, loaded with the bodies of coronavirus victims.
Prior to his disappearance, Fang recorded encounters with police at his home, as well as a tearful video discussing the disappearance of Chen and the death of Li Wenliang, a Chinese whistleblower who warned fellow doctors in early December 2019 about a SARS-like virus in Wuhan.
After he sounded the alarm, Li was interrogated by security officials, who made him sign a confession for "publishing untrue statements about seven confirmed SARS cases at the Huanan Seafood Market.” Li died in February after treating a patient infected with COVID-19 at Wuhan Central Hospital.
Li’s death and outrage across the country over the state of censorship in China.
Fang’s last video before his disappearance showed a written message that he read aloud: “Resist all citizens, hand the power of the government back to the people.”
In January, the authorities in Wuhan detained eight people for “rumors” and “forwarding fake news without verification, which has had an adverse social impact.”