Beijing: A Chinese journalist who was jailed for her coverage of China’s initial response to Covid-19 in Wuhan is close to death after going on hunger strike, her family said, prompting renewed calls from rights groups for her immediate release.
Former lawyer, Zhang Zhan, 38, had travelled to Wuhan in February 2020 to report on the chaos at the pandemic’s epicentre, questioning authorities’ handling of the outbreak in her smartphone videos.
She was detained in May 2020 and sentenced in December to four years in jail for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” — a charge routinely used to suppress dissent.
Her brother Zhang Ju wrote last week on a Twitter account verified by people close to the matter that she is now severely underweight and “may not live for much longer”.
Zhang has been on a hunger strike and was force-fed through nasal tubes, her legal team, which did not have information on her current condition, told AFP earlier this year.
“She may not survive the coming cold winter,” Zhang Ju wrote, adding that he had urged his sister in letters to “take care of herself”.
“In her heart, it seems there is only God and her beliefs, with no care for anything else.”
Zhang Ju’s posts sparked fresh calls for his sister’s release, with Amnesty International urging the Chinese government Thursday to “release her immediately so that she can end her hunger strike and receive the appropriate medical treatment she desperately needs”.
Amnesty campaigner Gwen Lee said in a statement that Zhang’s detention was a “shameful attack on human rights”.
China has revelled in its success in keeping domestic infections down to a trickle of sporadic outbreaks.
The government has put forward a narrative crediting the Communist Party with returning life almost to normal even as death tolls and infections continue to explode in the rest of the world.
But those who threaten the official version by raising questions about the government’s early cover-up and handling of the Wuhan outbreak face the party’s wrath.
Zhang is among a group of four citizen journalists — including Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua — detained after reporting from Wuhan.
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