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1h ago

China Sentences Citizen Journalist Zhang Zhan to Four More Years Over “Provoking Trouble”

Rights groups describe a closed hearing that barred diplomats, with no public explanation of the alleged offenses.

Workers in protective suits are seen at the Leishenshan Hospital, a makeshift hospital for treating patients with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Wuhan, Hubei province, China April 11, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo
Medical workers in protective suits attend to COVID-19 patients at the intensive care unit (ICU) of a designated hospital during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, February 6, 2020. China Daily via REUTERS/File Photo ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. CHINA OUT/File Photo
People wearing protective suits are seen in Biandanshan cemetery in Wuhan, Hubei province, the epicenter of China's coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, April 1, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo
A medical worker in a protective suit conducts a nucleic acid testing for a child at a residential compound in Wuhan, the Chinese city hit hardest by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, Hubei province, China May 14, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo

Overview

  • Reporters Without Borders says the 42-year-old was convicted on Friday on the charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” the same offense used in her 2020 case.
  • Zhang previously served four years for reporting from Wuhan during the early COVID-19 outbreak, was released in May 2024, then detained again in August and held in Shanghai’s Pudong facilities.
  • Officials outside the Shanghai court declined to confirm the proceedings, and European and North American diplomats seeking to observe were turned away for purported paperwork issues.
  • Authorities have not specified the acts underlying the new prosecution, while activists say the case followed her posts on overseas platforms about human rights abuses.
  • Press-freedom groups RSF and CPJ condemned the verdict and urged her release, and the UN human rights office called for her immediate freedom as RSF counts at least 124 media workers jailed in China and ranks the country 178th of 180 in its 2025 index.