Zhang Zhan has been held by authorities since May and was sentenced on Monday, December 28, for allegedly “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” during the initial stages of the outbreak in Wuhan with her reporting.
During her reports at the beginning of the outbreak in Wuhan, Zhan criticized the government’s handling and the response to the outbreak.
During her reporting of the outbreak, she shared videos of crowded hospitals and the realities of what the outbreak looked like in Wuhan.
In one of her videos, she said “The government’s way of managing this city has just been intimidation and threats,”
Yahoo News reports that the Chinese Communist Party authorities “have a history of putting dissidents on trial in opaque courts between Christmas and New Year to minimise Western scrutiny.”
