Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four years by the Chinese Communist Party authorities for reporting on the situation in Wuhan during the epidemic earlier this year. The news once attracted the attention of international media. A few days ago, a foreign media outlet released a video interview with Zhang Zhan before her arrest, in which she confessed that she spent basically every day in fear while covering the Wuhan epidemic, but she couldn’t go back because the country couldn’t go back. In addition, there are also netizens who said that Zhang Zhan did not go to court on the 28th voluntarily, but was tied to the court by the authorities.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) released a video of Zhang Zhan being interviewed before her arrest on the 29th. The film was reportedly an interview with an independent documentary filmmaker before Zhang was arrested by the Chinese Communist Party in early May, and the filmmaker shared it with the public after the Shanghai Pudong District Court sentenced Zhang to four years in prison for “provoking and provoking trouble.
Zhang Zhan said in the film that she bought a train ticket to Chongqing on Feb. 1 and got off at Hankou train station halfway. The reason why she wanted to go to Wuhan was because she saw a netizen posting on the internet that “Wuhan is an abandoned city.”
Since then, Zhang Zhan has been posting her own recordings and interviews on social media, including videos of the streets and inside hospitals. In the video, Zhang said that after she took a few pictures of hospital patients, she was discovered by the state security and warned.
In addition, she was often refused interviews on the street, and most of the people she interviewed were reluctant to show their faces, and security personnel threatened and warned Zhang Zhan not to film.
Zhang Zhan said that there may be a rebellion or rebellion within herself: “Why can’t these things be filmed? Then I think this is the truth. Why can’t we film the facts.” She therefore thought that she should put these facts on the Internet to let more people know the facts of Wuhan and let more people outside know what is happening in Wuhan.
Zhang Zhan also confessed that she basically spends every day in fear. Moments of fear include hearing her friends say that the state security is organizing her information and “wants to clean you up,” and when she feels unwell, she worries if she has contracted pneumonia.
The clip also mentions that Zhang Zhan had a long history of involvement in human rights activism and a critical attitude toward the Chinese government. She has also been arrested by the authorities for her solidarity with the anti-China movement in Hong Kong. In the film, Zhang also recounts her experience of being arrested by the Chinese Communist authorities: she was detained for 40 days in April 2019 and for another 62 days in October of the same year; Zhang said that each time she went in, she was asked to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, “and I was pressured to say that you are mentally ill.” She was also held in a confinement cell for up to seven days during that time, and also went on a hunger strike in protest. She concluded, “I can’t back down in the face of something like this, because this country can’t back down.”
Zhang Zhan is the first person known to have been sentenced for truthful reporting of the epidemic. The report said that the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Shanghai Pudong New Area Court have not responded to the BBC’s request for comment on the content of the video.
In addition, on Dec. 30, a netizen posted a video on the overseas social media platform Twitter, saying that Zhang Zhan was forced and tied up by the Chinese Communist authorities for a court hearing, and that Zhang Zhan said he would not accept such a trial.
Today I learned that Zhang Zhan was forcibly tied to the political court, she said she would not accept such a trial …….
What a fierce woman, really reminds me of Lin Zhao! I hope she can stop her hunger strike and must live to see them fall apart!
The netizens lamented: “What a fierce woman, really reminds me of Lin Zhao! I hope she can stop her hunger strike and live to see them (the Chinese Communist Party) collapse!”
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