Chinese woman jailed over Covid reporting in Wuhan is set to be freed
NBCMAY 16 2024
Zhang Zhan, a Chinese citizen journalist who was jailed in 2020 for reporting on Beijing's COVID lockdown policies in Wuhan, was reportedly set to be released Monday as her four-year prison sentence concluded.
The 40-year-old former lawyer from Shanghai traveled to Wuhan in early 2020 to report on the government's attempt to contain COVID in the city where the pandemic began. That May, she was convicted of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble."
Her reporting included filming a crematory and a hospital where rolling beds could be seen along the hallway. She also captured the city's empty train station and tried to interview people about the lockdown, to which residents declined or requested anonymity.
The quarrels Zhan picked weren't with the truth-seeking public but rather with the authoritarian government that didn't like her exposing its faulty COVID policies. Zhang was heroic in her attempt to report the news and remained courageous throughout her time as a political prisoner and she should finally be freed from her unjust sentence.
The West should stop interfering and trying to use a criminal like Zhan to tarnish China's reputation and earn political points. Zhan violated Chinese law, and for that, she is paying the price. Zhan is not a hero and shouldn't be treated as such.
Western governments commenting on press freedom in other countries are hypocrites, considering Julian Assange remains at the UK's Belmarsh prison. The UK and the US cannot be taken seriously on this issue when they put their own journalists in a jail meant to hold murderers and pedophiles. This can't be a "rules for thee but not for me" situation.