A citizen journalist jailed for her coverage of China’s initial response to Covid in Wuhan is close to death after going on hunger strike, her family said, prompting renewed calls from rights groups for her immediate release. Zhang Zhan, 38, a former lawyer, travelled to Wuhan in February 2020 to report on the chaos at the pandemic’s centre, questioning authorities’ handling of the outbreak in her smartphone videos. She was detained in May 2020 and sentenced in December to four years in jail for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – a charge routinely used to suppress dissent. She is now severely underweight and “may not live for much longer”, her brother Zhang Ju wrote last week on a Twitter account verified by people close to the matter.
“Zhan is 177cm tall, now she has less than 40kg wt. She may not survive the coming cold winter,” Zhang Ju wrote on 30 October. “I hope the world remember how she used to be,” he added. Zhang has been on a hunger strike and was force-fed through nasal tubes, her legal team, which did not have information on her current condition, told Agence France-Presse earlier this year. Zhang Ju's posts sparked fresh calls for his sister's release, with Amnesty International urging the Chinese government Thursday to "release her immediately so that she can end her hunger strike and receive the appropriate medical treatment she desperately needs". Amnesty campaigner Gwen Lee said in a statement that Zhang's detention was a "shameful attack on human rights".
Someone close to the citizen journalist, who declined to be named, told AFP the family had asked to meet Zhang more than three weeks ago at the Shanghai women's prison where she is being held but had not received a response. Zhang is among a group of four citizen journalists -- including Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua -- detained after reporting from Wuhan.