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A Chinese citizen journalist was jailed for four years for her livestream reporting from Wuhan as the COVID-19 outbreak unfurled, her lawyer said Monday, almost a year after details of an unknown viral pneumonia surfaced in the central China city.
Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer, was sentenced at a brief hearing in a Shanghai court for allegedly picking quarrels and provoking trouble for her reporting in the chaotic initial stages of the outbreak.
Her live reports and essays were widely shared on social media platforms in February, grabbing the attention of authorities, who have punished eight virus whistleblowers so far as they defang criticism of the government s response to the outbreak.
China jails citizen journalist for four years over Wuhan virus reports
28 Dec 2020 Police stand at the entrance of the Shanghai Pudong New District People’s Court in Shanghai. Leo Ramirez/ AFP
A Chinese citizen journalist was jailed for four years for her livestream reporting from Wuhan as the Covid-19 outbreak unfurled, her lawyer said on Monday, almost a year after details of an “unknown viral pneumonia” surfaced in the central China city.
Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer, was sentenced at a brief hearing in a Shanghai court for allegedly “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” for her reporting in the chaotic initial stages of the outbreak.
Gone but not forgotten, Wuhan a year after coronavirus first emerged 3 minutes read
By Jesús Centeno
Wuhan, China, Dec 28 (efe-epa).- The preventative measures enforced to curb the spread of Covid-19 are consigned to the memories of Wuhan residents a year after the first confirmed cases of coronavirus began to emerge in the Chinese city, but many questions remain as to how it grew into a pandemic that to this day has the world in its grips.
With no local cases of Covid-19 since mid-May, it is no longer necessary to provide a clean bill of health via a scannable QR code to access public transport in Hubei province in central China and obligatory mask use has gradually wound down since the draconian lockdowns of January this year.
A Chinese citizen journalist, Zhang Zhan, could face up to five years in jail if convicted of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" for her reporting in the chaotic initial stages of the Covid-19 outbreak.
China jails citizen journalist over coronavirus coverage
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Dec. 28 (UPI) A Chinese court on Monday sentenced citizen journalist Zhang Zhan who reported on the coronavirus outbreak in the central Chinese city of Wuhan to four years in prison.
The 37-year-old former lawyer was found guilty by the Shanghai Pudong New Area People s Court of picking quarrels and provoking trouble, a broad charge that is often leveled at activists, South China Morning Post reported.
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Zhang, arrested in May, was charged in connection to her reporting on China s handling of the coronavirus in the city of Wuhan, ground zero of the COVID-19 pandemic.