A former lawyer, Zhang Zhan, traveled to the central Chinese city in February to report on the pandemic and subsequent efforts to contain it, just as authorities began to curb state and private Chinese media.
She disappeared from Wuhan in May and was later revealed by police in Shanghai, a city more than 400 miles (640 kilometers) away, and charged with ‘arguing and provoking trouble’, a crime often used to kill journalists and human rights activists. .
Zhang is the first citizen journalist known to have been convicted for her role in reporting on the coronavirus pandemic.
Zhang is one of many independent reporters who have been detained or disappeared in China since the start of the pandemic, when authorities suppressed coverage of the virus and propaganda outlets gained momentum, portraying Beijing’s response as effective and timely.
In February, Chen Qiushi, who had been streaming live videos from Wuhan and posting on social media during the city’s closure, disappeared. In September he would be under “state surveillance”. Two other independent journalists – Li Zehua and Fang Bin – were also detained following their coverage of the Wuhan outbreak.
“Under the guise of fighting the novel coronavirus, authorities in China have escalated online repression by blocking independent reporting, information sharing and critical comments about government responses,” said Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a Hong Kong-based group. in an earlier report. this year.
China is the largest jailer of journalists in the world, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and tightly controls the press at home, while blocking most foreign media outlets through the Great Firewall, its massive online censorship and surveillance equipment.
In March, China put New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reporters in unprecedented action against the foreign press. Beijing said the move – which came amid a wave of critical coverage of China’s initial response to the coronavirus – was in response to recent restrictions by Washington on how Chinese state media operates in the US.
While sporadic outbreaks have surfaced and quickly quelled with lockdowns and quarantines, China has largely kept the virus in check, allowing the country to return to relative normalcy.
However, restrictions on the press have not been lifted, and Chinese state media has started aggressively promoting an alternate origin story for the pandemic, claiming that the coronavirus may have been circulating outside the country ahead of the initial outbreak in Wuhan.
