CHINA The sentence ended, but there is no news from the blogger who reported on the Wuhan pandemic

Zhang Zhan, a 40-year-old Christian and on the front line of defending human rights in Shanghai, should have been released today after having served four years in prison, but silence was imposed on her family and there is no certain information about her. Activists following her case fear that her detention will continue under other forms, as has already happened in other cases.

Shanghai (/Agencies) – After serving the four years in prison to which she was sentenced for the classic charge of “starting arguments and creating problems”, today was to be the day of the release of Zhang Zhan, the Christian blogger from Shanghai who In February 2020, she traveled to Wuhan and from the epicenter city of the Covid 19 pandemic, she tried to tell what was happening for three months as a “citizen journalist.” At the end of the day, however, no news had yet leaked from the Shanghai women’s prison where she served her sentence. And human rights activists are concerned that her detention may simply continue in another guise.

A 40-year-old graduate of Southwestern University in Chengdu, she was a lawyer although the local authorities of Shanghai had already suspended her license for her fights for human rights. She had first been arrested in September 2019 for marching with an umbrella along Nanjing Road in Shanghai in support of protests in Hong Kong. Given the first news about the pandemic, she traveled to Wuhan to document what was happening and she published nearly a hundred videos over three months, also answering questions from the international media. Arrested in May 2020, she was the first blogger convicted of spreading news about the pandemic.

In a note released this afternoon at 7:30 p.m. in Beijing, the campaign Free Zhang Zhan – who has maintained attention on her case from Great Britain – confirmed that no news has been received that the woman has actually been released from prison and is at home. “We know that Zhang Zhan’s family has been under enormous pressure and has received a stern warning not to give interviews to the media – says the statement this afternoon -. Phone calls from friends also went unanswered. At least one activist from Shanghai was summoned by the police a few days ago for expressing his intention to pick up Zhang Zhan when he was released from prison together with her mother. “An activist from Henan was intercepted at a train station when she was preparing to travel to Shanghai with the intention of greeting Zhang Zhan or at least showing solidarity with her outside the women’s prison, but she was prevented from purchasing a train ticket.” .

The “Free Zhang Xhan” campaign speaks of “extremely worrying signs.” “If Zhang Zhan is in the same situation as Chen Jianfang (another activist who was placed under house arrest in October 2023, when she was released from prison, ed.), He will have little chance of receiving the urgent medical care that she needs to recover. It is absolutely unacceptable that the Chinese government subjects many human rights defenders and their families to this type of cruelty. Even after her release, they remain deprived of their fundamental rights. For some it is as if they had been sentenced to life in prison.”

“We should already have news from her or her family – concludes the note -. Instead, we wonder where she is, how she is doing physically and mentally, what happened to her family and what the future holds for her: will she remain a prisoner in her home (as she did to Chen Jianfang)? Will she be detained in a medical facility without access to her family (like Hubei activist Yin Xu’an)? Will she forcibly disappear (like human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng)? Silence speaks clearly. “We urge the international community to hold the Chinese communist regime accountable for its horrendous practice of ‘soft detention’ or ‘non-release’ of former political prisoners.”