Blogger Zhang Zhan, who documented the Wuhan lockdown at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and criticized the human rights violations it involved, has been released from prison. This does not mean that she is fully free.
In a video posted on social media by UK-based activist June Wang, who coordinated the campaign for her release, Zhang Zhan confirms that she was released from prison on May 13, at 5 a.m., and was sent to her older brother, in Shanghai where she is from. “Thank you all for your help and follow-up. I wish you the best, I can’t say much more”explains the blogger in the video, looking worn out.
A former lawyer, Zhang Zhan went to Wuhan in February 2020 to collect testimonies of the confinement and report on the situation, which was darker than that described by the official press. She recounted the crowded hospitals, the delay with which the authorities had grasped the seriousness of the events, and the concerns of the residents of the Hubei capital. She estimated in a video that the government was only using “intimidation and threats”.
Arrested in May 2020, brought back to Shanghai, she began a hunger strike during her detention. Force-fed through nasal tubes, she told one of her lawyers that she was ready to let herself die. Tried between Christmas and New Year 2020, as the Chinese authorities often do for dissidents in the idea that the press, chancelleries and foreign opinions have something else in mind, she appeared in a wheelchair at her trial and was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for “provoking unrest”, a characterization often used against critics of the regime. After sharing on the Internet a letter from his sister testifying to her physical and mental discomfort in prison, her brother was pressured, removed the text and subsequently stopped reporting on her case.
“Really not free”
For nine days after his scheduled release date, his supporters waited for Zhang Zhan to come forward, before obtaining confirmation on the evening of May 21. But his situation seems very constrained. A friend who spoke to her on the WeChat messaging service, the Chinese equivalent of WhatsApp, told activist June Wang that Zhang Zhan was able to open an account there, but that she clarified that she was not “really not free”. She told another contact that she feared that the people responsible for monitoring her would confiscate her phone.
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