BEIJING – A Chinese court has sentenced a civilian journalist from Wuhan, the city where the Covid-19 pandemic allegedly began, to four years in prison, her lawyer has confirmed.
Zhang Zhan, 37, was one of several civilian journalists whose first-hand reports of the virus first surfaced nearly a year ago painted a more frightening picture of the early outbreak than the official story of the government.
Zhang, a former lawyer, arrived from her home in Shanghai in Wuhan in early February to document in a series of online reports how the city is enduring the new, deadly virus. Some of her posts were critical of the Chinese government’s response.
Zhang was detained in May and accused of disseminating false information, giving interviews to foreign media, disrupting social order and attacking the government.
On Monday, she was found guilty on charges of ‘choosing to quarrel and provoke problems’, Zhang’s lawyer, Zhang Keke, who is not related to the civilian journalist, told NBC News on Monday. Zhang did not speak or react to the court ruling, her lawyer said, adding that she did not respond when asked if she wanted to appeal her sentence.
Prior to sentencing, Zhang said his client was “in long-term hunger strike” in custody and being forcibly taken.
He said Zhang suffered from dizziness and headaches and was ‘physically fragile’.
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“When I met her days ago, her hands were tied at the waist and a nasal tube was placed in her nose,” he said, adding that his client did not plead guilty.
“She has a strong will,” Zhang said.
The human rights organization Amnesty International earlier this month also sounded the alarm about Zhang’s health and ‘risk of further torture and other ill-treatment’.
The United Nations Human Rights Office a tweet On Monday, it was’ deeply concerned ‘about Zhang’s sentence, adding that he continues to plead for her release after raising her case with the authorities as an example of’ excessive fighting for freedom of expression linked to Covid-19’s ‘.
China is accused of covering up the initial outbreak and delaying its response so that the virus could spread worldwide. Beijing has denied all allegations, saying it acted quickly to stop the virus, which has now claimed nearly 1.8 million lives around the world.
Criticism of China’s early handling of the crisis has been strongly censored in the country, with whistleblowers silenced and the state media restraining China’s success with the virus. The country’s health officials say they have recorded only 86,976 cases since the pandemic began, while there are more than 80 million cases worldwide.
In the early days of the outbreak, authorities reprimanded several Wuhan doctors for rumors after trying to inform the public about the new virus. The most famous of them, Li Wenliang, later died of Covid-19 and became a national hero.
Several other civilian journalists who reported on Wuhan during the early pandemic also appear to be.
Fang Bin, who shared videos of Wuhan’s hospitals on YouTube, has been missing since February. Chen Qiushi, who disappeared in February after delivering a series of social media posts about the outbreak in the city, is under surveillance and has not spoken publicly, the South China Morning Post reported. Another civilian journalist who reported on Wuhan, Li Zehua, reappeared in a YouTube video in April after missing nearly two months to say he was forcibly quarantined.
Eric Baculinao reports from Beijing, Yuliya Talmazan from London.
Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report.
Janis Mackey Frayer contributed.