Citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four years in prison on December 28 last year for “provoking and provoking trouble” for documenting the cries of Wuhaners under the impact of the Chinese Communist Party virus (New Coronavirus). Zhang Zhan is still on hunger strike. The truth about her harrowing struggle in detention and in prison has also been revealed.
Wang Jianhong, director of the overseas human rights organization Humane China, has been publishing “Zhang Zhan’s Blood and Tears” on social media platforms since March 5, documenting her struggle after her arrest, with tear-jerking details such as
“On February 3, 2021, Zhang Zhan, who had been sentenced to four years in prison, was finally able to have a brief video call with her mother. When she spoke of her innocent imprisonment, she was in tears. She said, ‘I didn’t lie.’ Zhang Zhan still looks extremely thin and frail, just as she did on the day of the trial”
“What was especially heartbreaking to her (referring to Zhang Zhan’s mother) was that Zhang Zhan’s formerly hydrated skin looked dry and wrinkled. The long hunger strike, the forced feeding, the shackles, the 24-hour restraint, and the physical and mental torture were so cruel. But Zhang Zhan was still determined to continue the semi- hunger strike! In the face of the mother who gave birth to her heartbreaking eyes and words of advice, teary-eyed Zhang Zhan reported to a ‘sorry’ …… There is no opportunity to do anything to explain,”
“At the end of October, I heard that the lawyer intervened, only to learn that Zhang Zhan hunger strike is due to resistance to be forced to confess guilt, to express the uncompromising and resolute protest attitude, and has been on hunger strike for five months! In December, Ren met with Zhang Zhan and said that Zhang Zhan was completely ‘out of shape’! She herself has faced lawyers in tears, saying ‘every day is torment’, saying that I do not know if I can hold up to the court.”
The above was widely retweeted on Twitter. Former CPC Central Party School Cai Xia commented, “It’s heartbreakingly painful to read, so painful that your heart trembles …….” “This resolute and determined woman fought to the death in the detention center and in the prison for the sake of her beliefs and for the innocent people whose lives were taken by the Wuhan virus in the Epidemic, which is more tragic than ordinary people can imagine, and the limit of what they can endure.” “Zhang Zhan is not guilty! Free Zhang Zhan!”
Zhang Zhan’s video of patients lying in the aisles of the hospital provided a glimpse into the reality of Wuhan’s people under a tight embargo during the first months of the Communist Party’s viral outbreak. But the video was part of the evidence that led to her being sentenced to prison. Her lawyer said Zhang became one of several iconic figures seeking the truth in China during the early days of the outbreak, when information was tightly blocked.
In addition to Zhang, Fang Bin, Chen Qiushi and Li Zeh Hua were all disappeared for their independent reporting on the Wuhan outbreak, and Fang Bin has not been heard from since.
Deutsche Welle reported on March 5 that Zhang Zhan is still on hunger strike in prison and is severely weakened.
According to her lawyer, Zhang has been on a hunger strike since her arrest, but she has been force-fed by the police with a nasal feeding tube and has been tied up for a long Time as a result. She had become so thin before Christmas that she was barely recognizable to those who knew her well.
The newspaper quoted a lawyer, Zhang Zhan, who requested anonymity, as saying, “She went to Wuhan because she sympathized with the people in the epidemic area and wanted to help them.” “With the factors behind (the epidemic cover-up) unresolved and the system that created the tragedy still in operation, will such a tragedy happen again and again?”
Ren Quanniu, who has worked as a defense attorney for Zhang Zhan, wrote an article last December saying that Zhang Zhan does not want to live with the darkness and that the hunger strike is not about fighting to gain personal freedom, but to express her strongest non-cooperation with the criminal persecution.
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