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- cross-posted to:
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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.
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.
Where’d you get that info from? What misinformation did she spread?
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.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/16/citizen-journalist-facing-jail-in-china-for-wuhan-covid-reporting-zhang-zhan
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.
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:
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: https://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.
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.
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
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): https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-51371586
The form he filled out at police station, clearly stating his action is against the law:
couple related articles in english:
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.
According to https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/arrest, “arrest” means
And in https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arrest
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.
Ah, there you are!
Sorry, I thought when you asked “what gives?” you wanted an actual answer. My bad.
I was being facetious
Wow really? I couldn’t tell.
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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.
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.
To be honest, China allies and helps far right wingers around the world. Capitalists are shaping countries towards China’s model.
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.
How about
America bad
Russia bad
China bad
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