"Zhang Zhan, who was released from prison in May 2024 after serving four years behind bars, is expected to go on trial on Friday at the Shanghai Pudong New Area people's courtfor picking quarrels and provoking trouble, a catch-all term used to target government critics. Antoine Bernard, a director of advocacy and assistance for Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a press freedom NGO, said Zhang's trial this week was not only prosecution, it's persecution."
"In February 2020, Zhang travelled to Wuhan to document the Chinese government's response to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. She shared her reports on X, YouTube and WeChat. She criticised the authorities for restricting people's freedom in the name of pandemic controls. Her videos have been viewed more than 100,000 times and provided a rare glimpse into the early days of China's harsh zero-Covid regime, which came to define the government's approach to social control for the next three years."
Zhang Zhan is a 42-year-old former lawyer from Shaanxi who converted to Christianity in 2015 and began speaking publicly about human rights. She travelled to Wuhan in February 2020 to document the government's response to the Covid-19 outbreak, publishing reports on X, YouTube and WeChat that were viewed over 100,000 times. Authorities arrested her in May 2020 and sentenced her to four years in prison on a charge of 'picking quarrels and provoking trouble.' She undertook periodic hunger strikes in prison to protest her treatment and was released in May 2024; she is now expected to face a second trial.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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