Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2020 10:45:04 GMT -5
Chinese journalist who documented Wuhan coronavirus outbreak jailed for 4 years
An independent Chinese journalist who reported from Wuhan at the height of the initial coronavirus outbreak has been jailed for four years by a Shanghai court, her lawyer said Monday.
Zhang Zhan, 37, was found guilty of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble," according to one of her defense lawyers Zhang Keke, who attended her hearing. The offense is commonly used by the Chinese government to target dissidents and human rights activists.
A former lawyer, Zhang traveled some 400 miles from Shanghai to Wuhan in early February to report on the pandemic and subsequent attempts to contain it, just as the authorities began reining in state-run and private Chinese media.
For more than three months, she documented snippets of life under lockdown in Wuhan and the harsh reality faced by its residents, from overflowing hospitals to empty shops. She posted her observations, photos and videos on Wechat, Twitter and YouTube — even though the last two are blocked in China.
Her postings came to an abrupt stop in mid-May, and she was later revealed to have been detained by police and brought back to Shanghai. According to Amnesty International, at one point during her detention Zhang went on hunger strike, during which time she was shackled and force fed, treatment the group said amounted to torture.
Her lawyer Zhang Keke, who visited Zhang earlier this month while she was in detention, described on social media that Zhang had a feeding tube attached to her nose and mouth. He said her hands were tied to prevent her from removing the device, and that she suffered from constant headache and pain in her stomach and throat.
CNN did not immediately receive a response from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on allegations of Zhang's mistreatment in detention.
Zhang's lawyer said she attended Monday's hearing in a wheelchair, as she had become frail during her time in detention.
In her indictment, prosecutors accused her of "publishing large amounts of fake information" and receiving interviews from overseas media outlets, including Radio Free Asia and the Epoch Times, to "maliciously stir up the Wuhan Covid-19 epidemic situation."
But Zhang's lawyer said the prosecutors did not display any concrete evidence of the "fake information" Zhang was accused of fabricating during the court proceedings. He added that his client, in a gesture of protest, barely spoke during the trial and refused to plead guilty.
Zhang is one of a number of independent reporters who have been detained or disappeared in China since the beginning of the pandemic, as the authorities clamped down on coverage of the virus and propaganda outlets went into overdrive portraying Beijing's response as effective and timely. — CNN
www.stltoday.com/news/chinese-journalist-who-documented-wuhan-coronavirus-outbreak-jailed-for-4-years/article_02fa0a3b-de61-5c0d-adac-e1caaedbc695.html#utm_source=stltoday.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletter-templates%2Flocal%2Fmorning-dispatch&utm_medium=PostUp&utm_content=fca1ef4a13b46079a4c5362bddd113fc6729f5f2
I still think this virus was created as a biological weapon!
An independent Chinese journalist who reported from Wuhan at the height of the initial coronavirus outbreak has been jailed for four years by a Shanghai court, her lawyer said Monday.
Zhang Zhan, 37, was found guilty of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble," according to one of her defense lawyers Zhang Keke, who attended her hearing. The offense is commonly used by the Chinese government to target dissidents and human rights activists.
A former lawyer, Zhang traveled some 400 miles from Shanghai to Wuhan in early February to report on the pandemic and subsequent attempts to contain it, just as the authorities began reining in state-run and private Chinese media.
For more than three months, she documented snippets of life under lockdown in Wuhan and the harsh reality faced by its residents, from overflowing hospitals to empty shops. She posted her observations, photos and videos on Wechat, Twitter and YouTube — even though the last two are blocked in China.
Her postings came to an abrupt stop in mid-May, and she was later revealed to have been detained by police and brought back to Shanghai. According to Amnesty International, at one point during her detention Zhang went on hunger strike, during which time she was shackled and force fed, treatment the group said amounted to torture.
Her lawyer Zhang Keke, who visited Zhang earlier this month while she was in detention, described on social media that Zhang had a feeding tube attached to her nose and mouth. He said her hands were tied to prevent her from removing the device, and that she suffered from constant headache and pain in her stomach and throat.
CNN did not immediately receive a response from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on allegations of Zhang's mistreatment in detention.
Zhang's lawyer said she attended Monday's hearing in a wheelchair, as she had become frail during her time in detention.
In her indictment, prosecutors accused her of "publishing large amounts of fake information" and receiving interviews from overseas media outlets, including Radio Free Asia and the Epoch Times, to "maliciously stir up the Wuhan Covid-19 epidemic situation."
But Zhang's lawyer said the prosecutors did not display any concrete evidence of the "fake information" Zhang was accused of fabricating during the court proceedings. He added that his client, in a gesture of protest, barely spoke during the trial and refused to plead guilty.
Zhang is one of a number of independent reporters who have been detained or disappeared in China since the beginning of the pandemic, as the authorities clamped down on coverage of the virus and propaganda outlets went into overdrive portraying Beijing's response as effective and timely. — CNN
www.stltoday.com/news/chinese-journalist-who-documented-wuhan-coronavirus-outbreak-jailed-for-4-years/article_02fa0a3b-de61-5c0d-adac-e1caaedbc695.html#utm_source=stltoday.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletter-templates%2Flocal%2Fmorning-dispatch&utm_medium=PostUp&utm_content=fca1ef4a13b46079a4c5362bddd113fc6729f5f2
I still think this virus was created as a biological weapon!
