Chinese blogger who documented start of Covid-19 released from jail
May 04, 2023
Beijing [China], May 4: The Chinese blogger Fang Bin, who was arrested in 2020 for documenting the beginnings of the Covid-19 pandemic, has been released from prison, but is reportedly being refused entry to Beijing. Fang Bin was released on Sunday. On Wednesday, the US broadcaster Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported that the Chinese authorities do not want him in Wuhan or the capital, where the 48-year-old was trying to stay with his children.
The so-called citizen journalist had been detained after posting videos of body bags and overcrowded hospitals in the central Chinese metropolis online. In 2020 his videos gave the world a first glimpse of the severity of the virus, but the shop owner was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of "picking fights and provoking trouble." Activists pointed out similarities to case of the 39-year-old lawyer Zhang Zhan. She was sentenced to four years in prison in December 2020 for reporting on the virus outbreak.
According to press reports, after her arrest in May 2020, she went on a hunger strike, causing her to be force-fed at times and slimmed down to 40 kilograms. After the virus spread across Wuhan at the end of 2019, a lockdown was imposed on the metropolis of 11 million people at the end of January 2020. China has reported only about 120,000 deaths to the WHO, almost half this winter. Foreign estimates put the deaths in China at around one million.(DPA)
Source: Qatar Tribune
