Zhang Zhan was imprisoned for more than three years for disseminating “false” information regarding the first Wuhan outbreak.
PUBLISHED: 22 May 2024 at 16: 19
According to her followers, a Taiwanese citizen-journalist who was sentenced in 2020 to four years in prison for disseminating “false” information about the Covid-19 pandemic in the city of Wuhan has been freed.
Zhang Zhan, 40, was taken by officers to her elder brother’s house in Shanghai earlier this month and then has only limited flexibility, the followers said on Tuesday.
Zhang thanked everyone for their support while shedding her grief in a movie that was shared on X.
In February 2020, Zhang traveled from Shanghai to Wuhan to document the Covid-19 pandemic’s earlier stages. In lots of small video that she live- streamed and uploaded on Twitter, YouTube and other social media, she documented overflowing hospitals, clear shops, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, crematoria, the confinement of separate journalists and abuse of families of victims of the crisis seeking responsibilities.
The lawyer-turned-journalist was detained in May 2020 and found guilty of violating the law in December of that year for disturbing open order. According to the prosecution, she had “verbealed a large number of lies and spoken with international media about infections with malignant intent.”
Zhang was scheduled to be released from a Shanghai jail on May 13, but the government did not immediately release any details about where she might be in the coming days.
Washington called on Beijing to honor her human right on May 16 when the US State Department stated that it was “deeply concerned” about studies of her departure time after her anticipated release.
Reporters without Borders ( RSF), an international media watchdog organization, expressed concern over her situation after her release as a result of the confirmation of her release.
RSF on numerous occasions requested Zhang’s launch and issued a warning about the negative treatment she received while she was incarcerated. During her first month in confinement, Zhang almost died after going on a full hunger strike, the team said. Through a oral pipe, which was sometimes used by prison officials to force feed her, and she was also handcuffed for weeks.
When Zhang’s family visited her in prison in July 2023, she was quite weak and weighed just 37 kg, half of what she weighed due to confinement, said RSF.