This content was originally published by Radio Free Asia, and it is now licensed for reprint.
Zhang Zhan, a citizen journalist from China, completed her jail term on Sunday for covering the COVID- 19 pandemic in Wuhan. However, according to fellow activists, her whereabouts are also unknown and that she is probably still subject to some restrictions.
Zhang, 40, was  , sentenced to four years ‘ imprisonment , by Shanghai’s Pudong District People’s Court on Dec. 28, 2020, convicted of ” ,picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,” a charge frequently used to target critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
She was  , hospitalized next year , for intestinal illnesses linked to nutrition following several weeks of hunger attacks.
Zhang, a former prosecutor, had pleaded not guilty. In China’s administrative system, a guilty plea is normally required for more forgiving treatment.
However, Zhang’s official prison sentence came to an end on May 12, according to activists, who said Zhang is unlikely to be seen in people any time soon because of the warning and threat she’s received from her supporters.
” Just as they did with , citizen journalist Fang Bin ,]the authorities ] definitely wo n’t be allowing Zhang Zhan to show her face,” supporter Liu Hua told RFA Mandarin”. They are completely terrified of that. They did make her vanish.”
Earth Zero
For many people in 2020, the information that the central Chinese city of Wuhan had been placed under quarantine was the first sign that , something , was deeply wrong, and that the , emerging pandemic , may have a worldwide influence.
On Jan. 23, 2020, the provincial authorities , imposed a travel ban , on some 18 million people in Wuhan and surrounding areas, prompting a , mass rush to leave the city. Three days later, they admitted that the newly emerging coronavirus was  , transmissible between people, something experts elsewhere had , suspected for weeks.
The notice plunged the city into a whirlwind of compulsory daily testing, enforced quarantine in , rapidly constructed mass facilities, amid a desperate struggle to seek medical treatment as hospitals in the city were overwhelmed, and crematoriums started operating , around the clock.
In the weeks and months that followed, there were only a select few who ventured into the chaos to share information about what was happening outside of China.
As the virus spread globally and , political heads rolled, the government tried to claw back control of the narrative by suppressing whistleblowing doctors like , Li Wenliang , and , Ai Fen.
Then, police started rounding up , frontline bloggers,  , archivists,  , diarists,  , YouTubers,  , livestreamers , and other , citizen journalists, including Zhang Zhan.
Fears she will just disappear
Liu said there are concerns that Zhang — whose case is considered high profile by the Communist Party — could disappear, like former , rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, whose family say they are n’t even sure if he’s still alive.
Shanghai petitioner Shen Yanqiu, who was interrogated by state security police and was warned against meeting her at the Shanghai Women’s Prison on the day of her scheduled release, claims that police are also moving to repress any public displays of support for Zhang.
Shen told RFA Mandarin,” I went to drink tea, and the municipal chief of police, the municipal legal and political affairs committees, as well as the municipal municipal legal and political affairs committees, put pressure on our neighborhood police station to monitor my movements and to avert me from going to the women’s prison.”
” They told me that the Zhang Zhan case is]being watched ] at a high level]of government], and that they hope I wo n’t get involved”, she said.
Shen claimed that Jia Lingmin, a fellow rights activist, received a similar warning from his local police on May 11 as he attempted to board a train in Zhengzhou, which was at 10 p.m.
” He was persuaded to go home by officers from the local police station”, she said.
On Monday, Zhang’s mother and brother repeatedly rang without reply.
Beijing-based rights activist Lu Jun, who currently resides in New York, claimed that the authorities were putting pressure on them to” cover up” what was happening there. Citizen reporting from the frontlines of the COVID- 19 pandemic in Wuhan.
” The authorities went to great lengths to cover up the COVID- 19 epidemic”, Lu said. ” ]Zhang Zhan’s ] actions were intolerable to them, and she was quickly arrested after entering Wuhan and handed a harsh sentence”.
He said that anyone who entered Wuhan at the time to seek justice for the victims or to expose the truth was taking a significant risk.  ,
He said Zhang’s family is likely unable to speak out on her behalf, as they themselves are likely being threatened.
