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Western MSM headlines criticizing the sentencing of “citizen journalist” Zhang Zhan 张展 to 4 years for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” (吵架惹麻烦) are everywhere today.
Is this state suppression of speech OR covert US interference in Chinese affairs? 谁是张展?
Is this state suppression of speech OR covert US interference in Chinese affairs? 谁是张展?
“Ms. Zhang is one of a large number of journalists, professionals and amateurs who flocked to Wuhan after the lockdown was imposed in late January” https://www.aboluowang.com/2020/1227/1538864.html
Per her friend Li Dawei, “Ms. Zhang had never been a citizen journalist before traveling to Wuhan from Shanghai, where she lived” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/25/world/asia/china-coronavirus-citizen-journalist.html
“Mr. Li, warned that the authorities would lose patience eventually, especially as Ms. Zhang grew increasingly bold. At one point, she went to police stations to inquire after the missing citizen journalists” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/25/world/asia/china-coronavirus-citizen-journalist.html
“Ms. Zhang was fiercely critical of the government in her dispatches, asking why it had tried to silence whistle-blowers about the virus and questioning whether Wuhan’s lockdown had been enacted too harshly.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/world/asia/china-Zhang-Zhan-covid-convicted.html
“When told that she could be imprisoned, Zhang Keke said, Zhang Zhan ‘quoted a passage from the bible and said she would expect herself to die in prison.’” https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx8zm4/china-jails-reporter-who-covered-wuhan-outbreak-her-crime-journalism
Interesting to note that US based NGO Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (NCHRD) is using Zhang Zhan’s case as a cause célèbre. https://www.nchrd.org/2020/09/zhang-zhan/
“a significant portion of [NCHRD] budget comes from the US government’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA-linked soft-power group that was founded by the Ronald Reagan admin in the 1980s to push regime change against independent governments” https://thegrayzone.com/2018/08/23/un-did-not-report-china-internment-camps-uighur-muslims/
