Journalist Zhang Zhan was arrested in May 2020 and sentenced in December to four years in prison for “causing disturbances of public order.”
Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, imprisoned after recording the application of the lockdown in the city of Wuhan after the first detection of the virus, is close to death, her family warned.
The 38-year-old former lawyer went on a hunger strike and has been force-fed with nasal tubes for months.
As her brother warned on Twitter last week, she is seriously thin and “may not survive the winter,” Zhang Ju said.
“It seems that for her only God and the truths she believes in count,” added the brother.
The woman was arrested in May 2020 and sentenced in December to four years in prison for “causing disturbances of public order,” a charge routinely applied in China to political dissidents.
Chinese journalist to be tried for reporting on coronavirus situation in Wuhan
In February 2020, this Shanghai lawyer went to Wuhan, central China, to narrate the situation there a few days after a strict lockdown was applied to the metropolis of 11 million people.
The recorded images of patients admitted in a crowded corridor of a hospital were one of the few information about the sanitary conditions of that city where the coronavirus was first detected.
On Thursday, Amnesty International called for Zhang’s immediate release to “end his hunger strike and receive the treatment he desperately needs.”
Reporters Without Borders also called on the international community to press for his release “before it is too late.”
AFP was unable to contact Zhang’s brother and his mother declined to comment on the situation. Also requested by AFP, those responsible for the prison did not want to speak.
One of the journalist’s lawyers, who requested anonymity, said that the family asked three weeks ago to visit her in the Shanghai Women’s Prison, but received no response.
His representatives have no information on Zhang’s current status.
In addition to Zhang Zhan, at least three other independent journalists (Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua) are detained after covering the epidemic crisis in Wuhan. (I)
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