Chinese journalist Zhang Zhan, sentenced in 2020 to four years in prison after reporting from Wuhan on the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, has been sentenced to another four years in prison. This was reported by Reuters, writes UNN.
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A Chinese court on Friday, September 19, found 42-year-old Zhang guilty of "inciting hatred and provoking public disorder" in China, the same charge for which she was imprisoned in December 2020 after her reports from Wuhan, where the COVID-19 pandemic began, about the early spread of the coronavirus.
Zhang was initially arrested after months of publishing reports, including videos, from crowded Wuhan hospitals and empty streets, which painted a more dire early picture of the disease than the official version. At the time, her lawyer Ren Quanniu argued that Zhang believed she was being persecuted for freedom of speech, not for the officially stated charges.
Zhang's attempt to go on a hunger strike in protest against the authorities' actions ended with police tying her hands and force-feeding her through a tube.
In May last year, after serving her sentence, Zhang was released, but three months later she was detained again and eventually officially arrested, placed in one of the detention centers in Shanghai.
Ren, the former lawyer of the convicted woman, believes that Friday's verdict is related to Zhang's comments on foreign websites about human rights violations in the PRC.
Reporters Without Borders, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, and a number of other human rights organizations have issued statements about the groundlessness and fabricated nature of the charges against Zhang, calling the verdict a blatant act of persecution for her journalistic work and demanding that the Chinese authorities drop all charges and immediately release the woman.
Beijing officials have not yet commented on Zhang's new verdict.
According to Reporters Without Borders, China has the world's largest prison for journalists, with at least 124 media workers behind bars.