Her official charges were, "picking quarrels and provoking trouble". Her indictment accused her of publishing a large cache of "fake" information and interacting with foreign media outlets. Interestingly, Ms. Zhan had been charged with "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" twice in 2019; but the indictment shed no light on the details of the pair of prior incidents. Here is a copy of her original indictment, in Chinese.
According to Amnesty International, Ms. Zhan has been on a hunger strike for the past 5-months; AI says she has been force-fed through feeding tubes and may have been tortured in other ways. Here is the complete AI report.
Leading up to her trial, she was shackled 24-hours a day. She had to be brought into court in a wheelchair to face her accusers; she defiantly refused to participate in the "trial", saying it was insulting. The BBC reported she was "psychologically exhausted".
In China, prosecutors typically resort to charges of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" whenever they need to silence government critics like Ms. Zhan. Journalists, dissidents, and human rights activists are all subject to these handy charges.
Ms. Zhan's trial no doubt went like 99.9% of all Chinese criminal trials: guilty as charged. In the sentencing phase of such cases, punishment is harsh. Ms. Zhan, for example, will now do 48-months in a Chinese prison, presumably the Pudong New District Detention Centre in Shanghai. As far back as March 2020, Ms. Zhan clashed with authorities when she bucked the official Communist Party line of encouraging so-called "gratitude education" recognizing the efforts of party leaders in containing the pandemic.
Zhan's Twitter handle and Youtube channel streamed content and videos of the crisis in real time. The videos were smuggled out of China through virtual private networks. Twitter and Youtube are banned in China; Zhan also posted some of her videos to the Chinese social media network WeChat.
Before her arrest, she was able to video a crowded hospital, a crematory, and a community health center. In other videos, she interviewed people on the street for their reactions to the government's handling of the pandemic; she sprinkled critical editorial throughout.
Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China in January, Ms. Zhan was not even a citizen journalist; she had been a lawyer. The New York Times described her as a stubborn and idealistic Christian; she reportedly quoted this passage from I Corinthians: "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able." One of Ms. Zhan's more fervent concerns was the fate of other now-missing journalists she met while reporting on the Communist Party's handling and early containment of the virus.
Probably because the Party had its hands full with containing the pandemic, Zhan was able to move freely about Wuhan to create, smuggle, and post content. According to the NYT, she was able to fly under the Party radar because she was a small citizen journalist with a very small following. Apparently, she acquired a higher profile when she began inquiring at police stations about the missing journalists. In China, that will do it every time.
She went missing in mid-May 2020 and popped-up over 400-miles away in a Shanghai courtroom in December. Very difficult to fathom that, if she outlives her hunger strike, Ms. Zhan will not embark upon a 4-year prison term for simply recording information about the pandemic.
The Communist Party judge that sentenced Zhan for documenting a public health crisis was, no doubt, impressed with her meddlesome character, as evidenced by her two prior charges from 2019. She apparently failed to show the proper deference to the government's efforts to combat the virus; she did not buy into her neighborhood "gratitude education".
Of course, this is nothing new for China and the Chinese Communist Party; a locked-down centrally-controlled communist governmental system with a very singular focus: the survival and advancement of the Party. Free critical thought is criminalized and repressed as it has always been in China.
Ms. Zhan's courage to document government action may prove disproportionately effective in shedding light on an always shifty regime.
The blogger, Timothy P. Flynn, owns and operates Clarkston Legal, a general practice law firm.
