Chinese journalist Zhang Zhan, 40, has been released after serving four years in prison for documenting the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic from Wuhan. “The police released me at 05:00 on May 13 and sent me to my older brother’s house in Shanghai. Thank you all for your help and concern. I wish you the best. “I really don’t know what to say,” Zhang simply said, holding back tears as he uttered those words, in a short video released through an intermediary and to which Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has had access.
Activist Jane Wang, who has led the campaign Free Zhang Zhan (Free Zhang Zhan) from the United Kingdom and is in contact with one of her former lawyers, has confirmed through her X account (formerly Twitter) that the video is not manipulated and that Zhang herself has communicated to her close circle that “he is not very free”, alluding to the fact that, in reality, he does not enjoy total freedom, despite having been released from prison.
Concern about Zhang’s whereabouts had increased since last May 13, the date on which he should have regained freedom, but on which, however, it was impossible to obtain information about his release, according to various activist groups and Zhang. Keke, one of his lawyers.
RSF considers that the publication of Zhang’s video, eight days after being released, is due to “increased international pressure,” and denounces that the journalist remains under “strict surveillance.” “Partial freedom is not freedom at all,” RSF emphasizes in a statement. For its part, Amnesty International (AI) condemns that “China’s imprisonment of Zhang Zhan has been a shameful violation of human rights.” Likewise, AI demands that “neither she nor her family be subject to surveillance or harassment” and that she be guaranteed “full access to medical treatment following her traumatic experience.”
Zhang is a Shanghainese lawyer who became what is known in China and elsewhere as a “citizen journalist”; That is, a person who reports on events without devoting themselves professionally to that work, but rather with a vocation for justice and transparency. On February 1, 2020, she traveled to Wuhan when that city, the original focus of the covid-19 pandemic, was confined and suffering the worst attacks of a then practically unknown virus.
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