Chinese woman jailed for reporting on Covid in Wuhan to be freed after four years

Citizen journalist Zhang Zhan’s search for the truth during the early days of the pandemic was seen as a threat by the authorities

A Chinese citizen journalist who has been in prison for four years after reporting on the early days of the Covid-19 epidemic in Wuhan is due to be released on Monday.

Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer, travelled to Wuhan in February 2020 to document the Chinese government’s response to what became the start of a global pandemic. She shared her reports on X (then known as Twitter), YouTube and WeChat. She was one of the few independent Chinese reporters on the ground as Wuhan and the rest of China went into lockdown.

In one video, recorded in February 2020, Zhang said: “I can’t find anything to say except that the city is paralysed because everything is under cover. That’s what this country is facing now … They imprison us in the name of pandemic prevention and restrict our freedom. We must not talk to strangers, it’s dangerous. So without the truth, everything is meaningless. If we cannot get to the truth, if we cannot break the monopoly of the truth, the world means nothing to us.”

In another video, she showed a hospital that was overflowing with patients on trolleys in the hallway.

blackberry,

As a Chinese person, I want to say: She may be innocent, but she deserves it.

Let’s think of China as a computer with numerous programs running on it. The programs represent people and activities (normal work and life). The governing bodies are the operating system, while the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the programmer sitting in front of the computer. Sometimes, when programs want to change something beyond their scope of action (like street protests or large-scale online denunciations—complaining in a personal capacity is considered within normal scope), the operating system often first acts to prevent these overreaching actions (many times this doesn’t involve persecution, but rather a phone call or a visit to tell you to stop. In common terms within the country, this is called “cooling down the heat”). The primary goal of the operating system is to maintain the stable operation of the computer. The more stable and efficient it runs, the more likely it is to be promoted. When the programmer notices that a program is running unstably, the operating system will be modified to ensure greater stability and efficiency. This means the political careers of incompetent or unfit officials will end. This is why you sometimes see the government silencing people, but eventually, the situation still moves towards a relatively good outcome. For instance, in the “Tangshan BBQ beating incident,” initially the local government tried to cool down the heat, but when higher-level authorities and the CCP intervened, the local government’s protectors were removed, and the perpetrators were sentenced to 24 years. The pandemic situation was similar: at first, the Wuhan local government tried to cool down the heat, but when the whole country focused on Wuhan, several responsible officials there were held accountable by the central government and their political careers ended.

However, if the change in the program’s scope of action is due to the influence of external virus programs, even if the program’s actions seem right to you, the program must be terminated. Since the pandemic began in 2019, Zhang’s rhetoric has closely resembled that used by many foreign institutions, such as: calling for freedom, democracy, and denouncing CCP rule. The Chinese people do not care about this; we are more concerned with making money and improving our quality of life. It’s similar with the “Tank Man” incident: when foreign forces intervene, an internal conflict among the Chinese people becomes an external conflict between us and them. The economic conflicts of the 1990s, under the influence of Western powers, became an attempt to cause internal chaos in China through a “color revolution,” akin to a virus trying to turn the computer into a “zombie.” What do you think the programmer would do?

Foreign intervention in China is a very sensitive topic, reminding people of the history from 1840 to 1949, a period of human-on-human predation. Those who collaborated with Western countries lived very well, but ordinary people suffered immensely; small-scale farming economies were crushed by industrial machines, and proxy wars among foreign agents caused widespread chaos. Have you ever thought about why the CCP was able to unify the entire country? Why do the Chinese people support the CCP? Understand these questions before discussing China. I am tired of hearing you talk about snippets about China from Western media. It’s time to read history books, starting from 1840 to the present, paying attention to the global situation outside China. Then you will understand why China has become what it is today.

BonesOfTheMoon,

That’s ridiculous.

boyi,

And don’t forget the tragic ending suffered by the Dr (can’t remember his name) that first brought out the covid issue, and his phone messages were leaked to the public if I am not mistaken. He was left dead with no proper care by the authority.

baseless_discourse, (edited )

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang

I don’t think he isn’t properly treated, at least according to wikipedia: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang#Illness_and_d…

There is a bench in New York central park dedicated to him: westsiderag.com/…/central-park-bench-and-gatherin… . If you are near the central park, you can stop by to pay tribute to him.

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

By early June 2020, five other doctors had died from COVID-19 in the Wuhan hospital, now called “whistleblower hospital”.

Was there a huge amount of doctors sick or did these guys just get disappeared?

cecinestpasunbot,

Early in the pandemic the rate of death was much higher than it is now. That’s because nobody had immunity and we didn’t know how to treat people with covid. Doctors treating the initial outbreak were also probably exposed to a large dose of virus all at once making their survival less likely.

jonne,

COVID was killing a lot of medical personnel initially because they weren’t using the right PPE and got infected with a large initial viral load.

theareciboincident,

How quickly people forget how major metro hospitals in the US had rows of refrigerated semi trailers because there were too many bodies

How doctors and nurses were told to wash and reuse their N95s despite it being proven to compromise their effectiveness because supplies were so low

I hope this bird flu shit blows up even worse, maybe then these dumbasses will get the message

jonne,

They’ll never learn. They told us to bang pots and pans for them, and now a few years later they’re still underpaid and overworked the world over. Same goes for every other ‘essential worker’.

roguetrick, (edited )

Oh I never washed mine. Just kept it in a plastic bag and wore it till the straps broke.

Edit: downvotes make me laugh. For context, I was a pre vaccine nurse on a COVID unit for the duration of the pandemic. Never did catch it though from the hospital.

Also wore a plastic face shield that I washed every time I left the room with bleach. Thankfully COVID is droplet spread so that’s plenty ppe. I wouldn’t have wanted to wear that N95 in a TB room though.

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

But the majority of deaths were always old people.

Younger people got damaged lungs but dying was a rarity.

boyi,

Yeah, it could be. May be the sentiment during that time made me think otherwise.

Anyway to quote NYT,

We found no evidence his medical care was compromised. But these documents, along with Dr. B’s account and experts’ analysis, reveal important new details about his illness and treatment.

and…

The experts said that based on the records, the treatment Dr. Li received, in general, followed the norms of that time for managing the symptoms of coronavirus patients

bur…

By the morning of Feb. 6, doctors wrote in the progress notes that Dr. Li was at risk of multiple organ failure. Several physicians we spoke to said that Dr. Li’s condition was so serious that his medical team should have at this point, or before it, considered intubating him and placed him on a ventilator — a higher level of oxygen support.

The records indicate that Dr. Li had earlier been given oxygen through a nasal tube and then an additional oxygen mask. His medical team also tried to use a noninvasive ventilator on Jan. 19, but wrote that “the patient could not tolerate.”

It is unclear why Dr. Li was not intubated. Some doctors are more reluctant to intubate young patients; sometimes the patients themselves refuse it. To this day, there is no consensus on when invasive ventilators should be used on Covid-19 patients.

and…

According to Dr. B, who arrived at Dr. Li’s intensive care ward around 9 p.m., about two hours after Dr. Li entered cardiac arrest, the hospital’s leadership pushed the medical team to use ECMO because it wanted to show the public that no effort had been spared.

But several doctors in the room argued that by that point it was too late for it to have been of any use, an assessment that six physicians we talked to agreed with. Dr. B also said putting Dr. Li on ECMO, given its invasive nature, would have been an “insult to his body.”

baseless_discourse, (edited )

Yeah, the final ECMO was indeed controversial in Chinese community. Other than that, I have not heard any indication of mistreatment.

Given his high social status, and he said “一个健康的社会不该只有一种声音” (a healthy society shouldn’t only have only one voice), some people suspect CCP likely wanted him dead. But so far, I am not aware of any evidence that his death is man-made.

FiniteBanjo,

Wikipedia isn’t really a good source for anything ever. If you’re going to cite wikipedia then just grab the wikipedia’s source from the bottom of the page.

GBU_28,

Many posters on Lemmy make clear to me china doesn’t have these types of issues. What gives?

Glad she’s out, hope she is able to leave the country, if she wishes.

boyi,

Nah. You’re on lemmy.world. You won’t find many of them here.

FiniteBanjo,

That shouldn’t be made clear to you because it’s false, China has piles of issues of every kind from homelessness to internment camps to wealthy elite.

GBU_28,

I’m being facetious, the overnight ml-lemmygrad-hexbear types chirp that message

assassin_aragorn,

Even worker and labor protection issues. That’s the entire reason in fact that US companies like to go with Chinese labor. It costs far less because the workers don’t get paid as much and don’t have the labor protections that Western countries do.

FiniteBanjo,

Not as true as it was a couple of decades ago, they’ve been shifting to Taiwan lately, but yeah.

cecinestpasunbot,

It seems she was detained for spreading misinformation about the pandemic when the initial outbreak was at its peak. That may not be illegal in the US. However, plenty of countries have such laws that go into effect during emergency situations.

I think it’s worth discussing the merits of those laws and how effective they are. However, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to use this case as a way to imply that China is silencing journalists when they report on inconvenient truths.

GBU_28,

Ah, there you are!

cecinestpasunbot,

Sorry, I thought when you asked “what gives?” you wanted an actual answer. My bad.

GBU_28,

I was being facetious

cecinestpasunbot,

Wow really? I couldn’t tell.

viking,
@viking@infosec.pub avatar

Have you been in China during the pandemic? No? Then shut the fuck up, kindly.

steal_your_face,
@steal_your_face@lemmy.ml avatar

Where’d you get that info from? What misinformation did she spread?

cecinestpasunbot, (edited )

I just clicked through to a guardian link that talked about why she was initially convicted. It’s harder to pin down exactly what misinformation she was accused of spreading though since most western outlets are causally dismissive of the claims.

theguardian.com/…/citizen-journalist-facing-jail-…

That said, this guardian article references interviews she did with VoA, an American government outlet, and The Epoch Times, a far right wing outlet run by the Falun Gong cult. The Epoch Times I know in particular has promoted antivax or anti lockdown conspiracies in the US, as well as other stuff like with Qanon and the idea that Trump actually won in 2020. It wouldn’t surprise me to know she was promoting similar anti lockdown conspiracies but just in China.

steal_your_face,
@steal_your_face@lemmy.ml avatar

To me it seems like she just talked negatively about the government and their policies on the global stage. Maybe could be considered misinformation because it appeals to westerners or something? To me it doesn’t seem like that though.

baseless_discourse, (edited )

since most western outlets are causally dismissive of the claims.

It is interesting you didn’t give any western media the benefit of the doubt, while giving CCP plenty.

After a quick google search, it seems like there are several court documents for Zhang’s case circling the internet:

There are two different versions, one judgement, one indictment (copy). Their contents seems to match, and they also match the reports of various media articles.

The indictment mentioned neither “the lie” nor “the truth”, which, in my mind, is probably why most media never reported it.

The document only mentioned:

故根据现查明的事实可以证实 张展通过微信、“twitter”(推特)、“YouTube”(油管)等网络媒介发布的相关文章、视频及接 受采访内容均与武汉市实际防控疫情的客观实际情况不符。

according to current known fact, the related article, videos, and interview by Zhang Zhan on wechat, twitter, youtube, differ from the objective truth of situations in Wuhan.

I was not able to find any court document from official source from China/CCP. Since all these articles are either photos or transcribed from photo, I don’t imagine the original documents are easy to find. It seems like the original document can be obtained from: wenshu.court.gov.cn (according to the title of the website, and Chinese government owned domain name), but they require personally identifiable information (like phone number, which is connected to ID in China) after I typed in 张展 (Zhang Zhan).

But since you clearly know more about China and CCP than I do, so you might want to give it a try.

RIPandTERROR,
@RIPandTERROR@sh.itjust.works avatar

🤡 Honk 🤡

mako, (edited )

@lemmy.ml

Not everyone of course but there’s way too many people over there who will justify anything the Chinese government does or just ignore criticism by saying, “what about what the US does?!!?!”

How they cannot understand that the US and China are both dystopian hellscapes is embarrassing.

cecinestpasunbot,

I think a lot of the problem is western media seems particularly lazy when reporting on China. It allows far right wing or US government outlets to control the narrative and make China look like a real life 1984 to a western audience. That makes it’s difficult for people to discern legitimate critique from misinformation. I understand why some may just avoid criticizing China altogether rather than risk playing into the misinformation that’s out there.

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

How about

America bad

Russia bad

China bad

RIPandTERROR,
@RIPandTERROR@sh.itjust.works avatar

Both America AND China look like a real life 1984.

Just always someone there to crawl out and go BUH AMERICA anytime someone criticizes China on Lemmy.

boredtortoise,

To be honest, China allies and helps far right wingers around the world. Capitalists are shaping countries towards China’s model.

baseless_discourse, (edited )

You know who else was arrested for “spreading misinformation”? The doctor who tried to warn his friends about covid privately, before the government took any action.

Source (in chinese): www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-51371586

The form he filled out at police station, clearly stating his action is against the law:

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/ws/412/cpsprodpb/8A2F/production/_110757353_wuhandocletter2.jpg

couple related articles in english:

cecinestpasunbot,

He was never actually arrested though as far as I can tell. The local police basically gave him a warning against spreading rumors of an SARS outbreak because they were worried it would cause a panic. This was an overstep and the police later apologized and admitted they were in the wrong.

baseless_discourse, (edited )

According to dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/…/arrest, “arrest” means

If the police arrest someone, they take them away to ask them about a crime that they might have committed

And in www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arrest

to take or keep in custody by authority of law

Dr. Li was taken to police station because the police has deemed his action is against the law.

He was later released because he signed a consent about “stop spreading misinformation”, which I showed in my response. We wouldn’t know how he will be treated if he refuse to sign such consent. But I might hypothesize that the police wouldn’t simply let him go.

And he has never spread any misinformation, the patient record he sent to his friend clearly indicated the patient has tested positive for SARS; and as we know later, the disease is indeed caused by SARS-cov2.

ammonium,

The mistake you make is that you assume the law works the same in China as in countries that have rule of law. China doesn’t have rule of law, they have ‘rule by law’. The Communist Party isn’t just above the law, the law is a tool for them to use how they see fit. If you are undermining the Communist Party then that is by definition misinformation.

Remember, this is the same country where one day the minister of health aplauded a journalist’s effort to combat pollution with a documentary called under the dome, and the next day it was gone from the internet as if it never existed. Whenever they have internal issues they stir up some hatred for the USA or Japan, only to be forgotten somewhat later.

They took 1984 not as a warning, but as a manual

Cyberjin,

Don’t fall for it, there is a lot of Chinese propaganda and damage control on social media.

China has a lot issues and Chinese people are fleeing their country

telegraph.co.uk/…/soaring-number-risk-death-to-fl…

aljazeera.com/…/disillusioned-about-china-more-ch…

toothpaste_sandwich,

A brave woman.

WhatAmLemmy, (edited )

Braver than most western journalists, who regurgitate the corporatocracies narrative and manufacture consent on their behalf.

Hopefully she’s given a good job and granted asylum somewhere in the west ASAP, so she can go on with her life.

EDIT: Gotcha! What kind of smooth brain do you have to be to consider my above statements logically inconsistent, ironic, or hypocritical?

None of the wests failings prevent it from currently enabling a freer and objectively better quality of life for the vast majority. She does not face persecution in the west. In China she has, and will continue to; especially under the social credit system.

mako,

Braver than most western journalists, who regurgitate the corporatocracies narrative and manufacture consent on their behalf.

True

Hopefully she’s given a good job and granted asylum somewhere in the west ASAP, so she can go on with her life.

What?

ipkpjersi,

I think the idea is that she could be arbitrarily detained in China whereas that sort of thing is typically seen as less likely in the west.

dubyakay,

Just don’t talk shit about Boeing.

jonne,

Or report on American war crimes.

FiniteBanjo,

If Boeing could have you arbitrarily detained then they wouldn’t need to kill people who testify.

Siegfried,

In the west we only have one rule

WhatAmLemmy, (edited )

Gotcha! What kind of smooth brain do you have to be to consider my above statements logically inconsistent, ironic, or hypocritical?

None of the wests failings prevent it from currently enabling a freer and objectively better quality of life for the vast majority. She does not face persecution in the west. In China she has, and will continue to; especially under the social credit system.

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