Activist Zhang Zhan re-detained less than four months after being freed following four years in jail

The citizen journalist was given sham trial and jailed for reporting on the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan

‘She has been re-detained because she refused to be silenced’ - Sarah Brooks

The Chinese authorities must end their persecution of the citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, Amnesty International said after the activist was re-detained less than four months after being freed from prison.

Zhang Zhan, who is being held at the Pudong New District Detention Centre in Shanghai, appears to have been targeted because she has continued to advocate for human rights since her release from jail on 13 May. 

Late last month, she reportedly travelled from Shanghai to the northwestern province of Gansu to show solidarity with other human rights defenders. Shortly afterwards, during a visit to her hometown in Shaanxi, she suddenly became unreachable. Civil society members reported she’d been taken into custody by police from Shanghai, more than 1,000km away.

Amnesty International’s China Director, Sarah Brooks, said:

“The depressingly predictable re-detention of Zhang Zhan is the culmination of the Government’s ongoing campaign of harassment against her, even after she was ‘freed’ from prison. Since being released, Zhang has been subjected to surveillance that has intensified over the past month.

“This latest detention underscores the Chinese authorities' intractable intolerance of dissent and of Zhang Zhan herself, who despite being unjustly jailed has continued to raise her voice in solidarity with other human rights activists since being released. She has been re-detained because she refused to be silenced.

“We urge the Chinese authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Zhang Zhan and ensure that she is granted full freedom and protection from any form of surveillance or harassment.”

Following her release in May, Zhang Zhan expressed concern that her online speech was being monitored by the authorities. According to information received by Amnesty during the past month she was regularly and repeatedly taken in for police questioning, with some interrogations lasting for more than ten hours.

Detained for reporting on Covid pandemic in Wuhan

Zhang Zhan is a Chinese citizen journalist was who jailed for reporting on the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan. A former lawyer, she travelled to Wuhan in February 2020 to provide on-the-ground information about what was happening there. She posted on social media about how Government officials had detained independent reporters and harassed families of Covid-19 patients. She went missing in Wuhan in May 2020. It later emerged that she’d been taken by the Chinese authorities and detained in Shanghai, where she was convicted of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” after a sham trial. On 13 May of this year, after completing a four-year prison sentence, Zhang Zhan was released. However, since her release she’s been subjected to strict surveillance and continuous harassment by the authorities.