626

Chinese woman jailed for reporting on Covid in Wuhan to be freed after four years (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 6 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

50 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Citizen journalist Zhang Zhan’s search for the truth during the early days of the pandemic was seen as a threat by the authorities

A Chinese citizen journalist who has been in prison for four years after reporting on the early days of the Covid-19 epidemic in Wuhan is due to be released on Monday.

Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer, travelled to Wuhan in February 2020 to document the Chinese government’s response to what became the start of a global pandemic. She shared her reports on X (then known as Twitter), YouTube and WeChat. She was one of the few independent Chinese reporters on the ground as Wuhan and the rest of China went into lockdown.

In one video, recorded in February 2020, Zhang said: “I can’t find anything to say except that the city is paralysed because everything is under cover. That’s what this country is facing now … They imprison us in the name of pandemic prevention and restrict our freedom. We must not talk to strangers, it’s dangerous. So without the truth, everything is meaningless. If we cannot get to the truth, if we cannot break the monopoly of the truth, the world means nothing to us.”

In another video, she showed a hospital that was overflowing with patients on trolleys in the hallway.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] baseless_discourse@mander.xyz 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

since most western outlets are causally dismissive of the claims.

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:

故根据现查明的事实可以证实张展通过微信、“twitter”(推特)、“YouTube”(油管)等网络媒介发布的相关文章、视频及接受采访内容均与武汉市实际防控疫情的客观实际情况不符。

according to current known fact, the related article, videos, and interview by Zhang Zhan on wechat, twitter, youtube, differ from the objective truth of situations in Wuhan.

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.

this post was submitted on 11 May 2024

626 points (98.3% liked)

World News

39174 readers

1481 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.