WUHAN: After spending three years in prison, Fang Bin, who documented the initial coronavirus outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan, was released, sources told the BBC.
Fang, one of several ‘citizen journalists’, vanished after posting recordings of incidents in Wuhan, the pandemic’s epicentre. According to sources, he was found guilty at a covert trial in Wuhan and given a three-year prison term before going missing in February 2020.
The sources said he was in good health and freed on Sunday. Fang has returned to his Wuhan home. His family was not available for comment when BBC approached.
Back then, the viral video showed him counting eight corpse bags outside a hospital in five minutes. He said that after being imprisoned that evening, he was freed. Afterwards, another video of him saying, “All people revolt – hand the power of the government back to the people” went viral. The final video that he shared was that one. Although the family hase praised his release, activists are worried about Zhang Zhan, a 39-year-old former attorney arrested in May 2020 and sentenced to four years imprisonment in December 2020. Zhang Zhan is a second whistle-blower.
Activists claim that, like Fang, Zhang Zhan was found guilty of “picking fights and causing trouble,” a broad charge frequently used to prosecute opponents of the Chinese government. Chen Qiushi and Li Zehua, two other citizen journalists, went missing in Wuhan in February 2020 but eventually surfaced.
Their videos gave viewers a rare look at Wuhan in the first half of 2020. Lockdowns had been implemented, and cases were increasing, but officials provided little information. The brutal zero-Covid campaign in the country, which was inspired by Wuhan’s 76-day lockdown, imposed a great deal of strain on the city. Zhang, a Shanghai resident, visited Wuhan in February 2020 to document the outbreak after reading about a local’s experience. Despite allegedly being threatened by local officials, she shared videos, was active on Twitter and YouTube, was barred from mainland China, and was blocked from Facebook.
“Maybe I have a rebellious soul… I’m just documenting the truth. Why can’t I show the truth?” She said in her interview with an independent filmmaker that the BBC obtained.
She went on a hunger strike soon after her detention; according to the Free Zhang Zhan organisation, she was occasionally force-fed as her weight dropped to under 40kg (88lb). She might still be on a hunger strike, but it’s unclear. Her family little know about her illness.
