Reporters Without Borders (RSF), an international organization, today (Feb. 10) released an investigative report indicating that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has arrested at least 10 journalists or commentators who reported on the outbreak of the Wuhan pneumonia virus more than a year ago, and that seven are still in detention or unaccounted for.
The Central News Agency (CNA) reported today that according to a new report released by Reporters Without Borders, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities have intensified their crackdown on the news media and social media since the outbreak and have arrested at least 10 journalists and commentators who reported or spoke about the outbreak, with seven still detained or unaccounted for.
The seven are Zhang Zhan, Ren Zhiqiang, Guo Quan, Cai Wei, Chen Mei, Chen Qiushi and Fang Bin.
It is reported that Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four years in prison by the Chinese Communist Party authorities on December 28 last year for “provoking and provoking trouble” for posting news about the Wuhan Epidemic on WeChat, Twitter (Twitter) and Youtube (oil pipe).
Ren Zhiqiang, a Chinese real estate tycoon and second generation redneck, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Sept. 22 last year for “corruption” after criticizing the CCP’s ineffective response to the epidemic and calling Xi Jinping “a clown who wants to be The Emperor even if he takes off his clothes.
Guo Quan, a former associate professor at Nanjing Normal University, was criminally detained by the Nanjing Public Security Bureau on January 31 last year for publishing critical articles on the epidemic, and was arrested two weeks later on suspicion of “inciting subversion of state power” by the prosecutor’s office.
Cai Wei and Chen Mei, volunteers for the website TuanDotStar, were arrested on April 19 last year for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” for spreading news about the epidemic, and on August 6, their officially appointed lawyer informed their families that the case had been transferred to the Chaoyang District Procuratorate on that day. a trial.
Lawyer Chen Qiushi traveled to Wuhan on Jan. 24 last year and posted a series of videos of field reports, including medical, emergency and funeral overloads seen at various hospitals. on Feb. 6, Chen’s mother sent a video saying that he had said he was going to the Fangzhai Hospital the day before, but had been out of contact at night. On September 17, Chen Qiushi’s close friend and fight fanatic Xu Xiaodong disclosed that Chen Qiushi was healthy and no longer in Wuhan, but was still under residential surveillance. However, there is no definite news about him from the outside world so far.
Wuhan citizen Fang Bin was released in early February after authorities broke into his Home and took him to a police station after he had been filmed in four hospitals, and on February 9 he posted a YouTube video showing a calligraphic banner that read “All People Resist, Return Political Power to the People. On the same day, he was taken away again by the police and has not been seen since.
Reporters Without Borders’ East Asia office executive director, Emmanuel Ewein, said in the report, “It is not a crime to let the public know about this unprecedented crisis of public defense! These journalists should not have been arrested at all.”
Ai Wei-Ang called on the Chinese Communist authorities to release the seven immediately and on the international media to put pressure on Beijing “to allow all journalists in jail in China to be released and to end censorship.”
According to a report released late last year by Reporters Without Borders, the Chinese Communist Party arrested 117 journalists in 2020, one third of whom were non-professional journalists. The report said it is not only Chinese journalists who are persecuted by the Chinese Communist government, but also foreign journalists. China is the country with the most arrests of journalists.
A report late last year by the Committee to Protect Journalists, another world journalist organization, also found that China was the world’s most imprisoned journalist for the second year in a row.
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