In China, in a short video message, former lawyer and blogger Zhang Zhan confirms that she was released from prison on May 13. The forty-year-old went to Wuhan at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic where she denounced the authorities’ health restriction policy.
2 mins
With our correspondent in Beijing, Stéphane Lagarde
Where is Zhang Zhan? The hashtag has been running for several days on foreign social networks accessible with a VPN in China. Because since her release from Shanghai women’s prison ten days ago, there has been no news.
Her supporters had warned of the risk of silencing the ex-lawyer who received the press freedom courage prize RSF in 2021. As is often the case for opponents sentenced to detention for “provoking unrest and quarrels” in China.
RSF is relieved to learn that #ZhangZhan was released from prison. But the journalist remains under surveillance. The organization calls for diplomatic intervention to ensure his total and unconditional release as soon as possible. #WhereIsZhangZhan https://t.co/bPCfFduUh5
— RSF (@RSF_inter) May 21, 2024
Partial release
A silence that has become embarrassing given the international mobilization to obtain news from him, precisely. In a short video delivered “ through an intermediary » to the associations which campaigned for his release, in particular to the activist Jane Wang in the United Kingdom, Zhang Zhan appears in pink pajamas, his features drawn. She confirms that she has been released.
“ Hello everyone, my name is Zhang Zhan. The police released me from prison at 5 a.m. on May 13 and sent me to my older brother in Shanghai City, explains the former lawyer. Thank you all for your help and for caring about me. I wish you the best. And I don’t have much more to say. »
Citizen journalists
Apart from this short video, there were no other signs of life. The ex-lawyer’s contacts or former contacts in China do not give answers or say they do not have any. The NGOs which support it, such as Reporters Without Borders, say they remain “ concerned about his situation and emphasize that partial freedom is not freedom at all “.
Arrested in February 2020, her smartphone in her hand filming the barriers and confinement of Wuhan, the city cradle of the Covid-19 pandemic, Zhang Zhan was sentenced to longer sentence as other personalities qualified as “citizen journalists” and critics of the so-called “zero Covid” policy. A policy that the Chinese authorities wish to forget. The term has disappeared from Chinese state media since December 2022.