A Chinese citizen journalist serving 4 years behind bars over her essential reporting on the federal government’s dealing with of the COVID-19 outbreak is close to death after happening a starvation strike, her household said.
Zhang Zhan, 38, was convicted in December 2020 by a Shanghai courtroom of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” for her video and weblog experiences from Wuhan in the course of the early days of the pandemic.
Her experiences had been extensively shared on social media earlier that 12 months, grabbing the eye of authorities, who have punished eight whistleblowers for documenting the outbreak or questioning the Chinese Communist Party’s response to it.
The former lawyer has been on a starvation strike and was force-fed via nasal tubes, her authorized crew instructed Agence France-Presse earlier this 12 months.
Reporters Without Borders said she can not stroll and even increase her head with out help.
Her brother Zhang Ju wrote final week on a Twitter account verified by individuals close to the matter that she is severely underweight and “may not live for much longer,” in accordance to AFP.
“She may not survive the coming cold winter,” he wrote, saying he had urged his sister in letters to “take care of herself.”
Zhang Ju added: “In her heart, it seems there is only God and her beliefs, with no care for anything else.”
His posts prompted new calls to let Zhang Zhan go, with Amnesty International urging Beijing on 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 press release that her detention was a “shameful attack on human rights.”
Protests started in help of liberating 12 Hong Kong residents, together with Zhang Zhan.Getty Images
A supply close to Zhang Zhan instructed AFP on situation of anonymity that the household had requested to meet her greater than three weeks in the past on the ladies’s jail the place she is being held however had not gotten a response.
The Shanghai jail didn’t reply to a request for remark by the information outlet.
On Friday, China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t touch upon the girl’s situation, however dismissed calls from rights teams for her launch as “anti-China political manipulation.”
“China is a country with rule of law. Anyone who breaks the law must be punished in accordance with the law,” ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin instructed reporters.
Zhang is amongst a gaggle of 4 citizen journalists — together with Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua — detained for his or her reporting from Wuhan.
