Police from Shanghai have detained a lawyer-turned-citizen journalist who reported on the emerging coronavirus epidemic in the central Chinese
Police from Shanghai have detained a lawyer-turned-citizen journalist who reported on the emerging coronavirus epidemic in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
Zhang Zhan, who lives in Shanghai but who traveled to Wuhan in early February, was taken away from Wuhan’s Caiguang Hotel near Hankou railway station on the night of May 14.
A friend of Zhang’s who gave only a surname Tang said he was told by hotel staff when he went in search of her on May 15 that she had checked out of the hotel the night before.
“I inquired at the front desk, saying I hadn’t been able to reach my friend Zhang Zhan,” Tang said. “The staff at the Caiguang Hotel said she checked out the day before.”
Asked if Zhang had left the hotel alone, the staff only replied that “it’s not convenient to discuss the details,” using a phrase often used by activists to indicate the intervention of the authorities.
“You probably know what happened,” the staff member said.
Gao Fei, a supporter of Zhang’s from Hubei province, said he had learned that she is being held under criminal detention in Shanghai’s Pudong New District Detention Center, on suspicion of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,” a charge often used to target peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
“[People have been] calling the Pudong branch of the Shanghai police department, hoping to get her status changed to residential surveillance,” Gao said.
“They won’t let her speak out, or report the truth about what’s happening,” he said. “But I wish they would treat her with a bit more humanity.”
An officer who answered the phone at the Pudong police department declined to comment on Zhang’s case when contacted by RFA on Monday.
“We don’t have access to that information here,” the officer said. “You need to get in touch with her family, OK? They should have received some notification.”
Zhang’s detention came after she told RFA she didn’t believe it was safe to keep sending reports to Twitter and YouTube from Wuhan.
