The spokesperson for the United States Department of State, Matthew Miller, expressed this Thursday “deeply concerned” by reports about the disappearance of citizen journalist and lawyer Zhang Zhan, imprisoned in China after documenting the first days of the COVID pandemic. -19 in the city of Wuhan, and whose release from prison was scheduled for May 13.
“The United States is deeply concerned by reports that Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan has disappeared following her expected release from Shanghai Women’s Prison on May 13, after four years in prison on charges related to her reporting. regarding the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan,” Miller said in a statement.
Following this, he reiterated that his detention was “arbitrary” and that the authorities inflicted “mistreatment” on him, which is why he urged the Chinese Government to “respect Zhang’s Human Rights” and release her “immediately.”
Likewise, he has called for an end to the “restrictive measures” that “all journalists” in the country face such as “surveillance, censorship, harassment or intimidation.”
“Journalists in the People’s Republic of China must be safe and able to report freely,” Miller added. Zhang traveled to Wuhan in February 2020 and, for three months, examined the authorities’ response to the blockade and spread information about it on social media. In May, she was detained by the police and taken to Shanghai, where she was finally sentenced in December to four years in prison for “picking trouble and provoking trouble.”
