626
Chinese woman jailed for reporting on Covid in Wuhan to be freed after four years
(www.theguardian.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
626 points (98.3% liked)
World News
39153 readers
2024 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
It seems she was detained for spreading misinformation about the pandemic when the initial outbreak was at its peak. That may not be illegal in the US. However, plenty of countries have such laws that go into effect during emergency situations.
I think it’s worth discussing the merits of those laws and how effective they are. However, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to use this case as a way to imply that China is silencing journalists when they report on inconvenient truths.
Where’d you get that info from? What misinformation did she spread?
I just clicked through to a guardian link that talked about why she was initially convicted. It’s harder to pin down exactly what misinformation she was accused of spreading though since most western outlets are causally dismissive of the claims.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/16/citizen-journalist-facing-jail-in-china-for-wuhan-covid-reporting-zhang-zhan
That said, this guardian article references interviews she did with VoA, an American government outlet, and The Epoch Times, a far right wing outlet run by the Falun Gong cult. The Epoch Times I know in particular has promoted antivax or anti lockdown conspiracies in the US, as well as other stuff like with Qanon and the idea that Trump actually won in 2020. It wouldn’t surprise me to know she was promoting similar anti lockdown conspiracies but just in China.
It is interesting you didn't give any western media the benefit of the doubt, while giving CCP plenty.
After a quick google search, it seems like there are several court documents for Zhang's case circling the internet:
There are two different versions, one judgement, one indictment (copy). Their contents seems to match, and they also match the reports of various media articles.
The indictment mentioned neither "the lie" nor "the truth", which, in my mind, is probably why most media never reported it.
The document only mentioned:
I was not able to find any court document from official source from China/CCP. Since all these articles are either photos or transcribed from photo, I don't imagine the original documents are easy to find. It seems like the original document can be obtained from: https://wenshu.court.gov.cn/ (according to the title of the website, and Chinese government owned domain name), but they require personally identifiable information (like phone number, which is connected to ID in China) after I typed in 张展 (Zhang Zhan).
But since you clearly know more about China and CCP than I do, so you might want to give it a try.
To me it seems like she just talked negatively about the government and their policies on the global stage. Maybe could be considered misinformation because it appeals to westerners or something? To me it doesn’t seem like that though.
The mistake you make is that you assume the law works the same in China as in countries that have rule of law. China doesn't have rule of law, they have 'rule by law'. The Communist Party isn't just above the law, the law is a tool for them to use how they see fit. If you are undermining the Communist Party then that is by definition misinformation.
Remember, this is the same country where one day the minister of health aplauded a journalist's effort to combat pollution with a documentary called under the dome, and the next day it was gone from the internet as if it never existed. Whenever they have internal issues they stir up some hatred for the USA or Japan, only to be forgotten somewhat later.
They took 1984 not as a warning, but as a manual
You know who else was arrested for "spreading misinformation"? The doctor who tried to warn his friends about covid privately, before the government took any action.
Source (in chinese): https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-51371586
The form he filled out at police station, clearly stating his action is against the law:
couple related articles in english:
He was never actually arrested though as far as I can tell. The local police basically gave him a warning against spreading rumors of an SARS outbreak because they were worried it would cause a panic. This was an overstep and the police later apologized and admitted they were in the wrong.
According to https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/arrest, "arrest" means
And in https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arrest
Dr. Li was taken to police station because the police has deemed his action is against the law.
He was later released because he signed a consent about "stop spreading misinformation", which I showed in my response. We wouldn't know how he will be treated if he refuse to sign such consent. But I might hypothesize that the police wouldn't simply let him go.
And he has never spread any misinformation, the patient record he sent to his friend clearly indicated the patient has tested positive for SARS; and as we know later, the disease is indeed caused by SARS-cov2.
Ah, there you are!
Sorry, I thought when you asked “what gives?” you wanted an actual answer. My bad.
I was being facetious
Wow really? I couldn’t tell.
Not everyone of course but there's way too many people over there who will justify anything the Chinese government does or just ignore criticism by saying, "what about what the US does?!!?!"
How they cannot understand that the US and China are both dystopian hellscapes is embarrassing.
I think a lot of the problem is western media seems particularly lazy when reporting on China. It allows far right wing or US government outlets to control the narrative and make China look like a real life 1984 to a western audience. That makes it’s difficult for people to discern legitimate critique from misinformation. I understand why some may just avoid criticizing China altogether rather than risk playing into the misinformation that’s out there.
To be honest, China allies and helps far right wingers around the world. Capitalists are shaping countries towards China's model.
Both America AND China look like a real life 1984.
Just always someone there to crawl out and go BUH AMERICA anytime someone criticizes China on Lemmy.
How about
America bad
Russia bad
China bad