The Chinese blogger activist Zhang Zhan, in prison for having denounced the management of the Covid-19 pandemic on social media, “risks dying if she is not released urgently to receive medical treatment”. It is the appeal of Amnesty International which in a note states that the 38-year-old Chinese journalist and former lawyer is in agony after a very long hunger strike that led her to weigh less than 40 kilos.
Zhang Zhan had traveled to Wuhan in February 2020 to collect news on the spot and had posted messages on social media in which she denounced the arrests of independent journalists and the pressure exerted by the authorities on families of patients affected by Covid.
The former lawyer was arrested in May 2020 and last December was sentenced to four years in prison on charges of causing unrest, often inflicted on activists and dissidents in China. The report of his health conditions came from the family: his brother described his physical condition on his Twitter account, adding that “he may not survive the winter”.
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The account was verified by people close to the young documentary maker. Her lawyers said they were not aware at the time of the condition of the woman, who had already been force-fed last year. Amnesty International has called for Zhang’s “immediate release” so that he can receive the medical treatment he needs, and without which he is “at risk of dying”. The family would have asked to meet her in recent weeks in the prison where she is being held in Shanghai, according to anonymous sources of theAfp, but without receiving answers.
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