The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders requested Monday the urgent intervention of Chinese authorities regarding the arbitrary detention and ill-treatment of citizen journalist Zhang Zhan.
Zhang Zhan is accused of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.” Currently, there is no information about Zhang Zhan’s situation at the Pudong Detention Center in Shanghai due to pressure on her lawyer not to disclose case details publicly. The date for the hearing is still unknown, but prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence of four to five years.
Amnesty International reported that Zhang was arrested by Shanghai police after she visited Gansu province in August 2024. As a former lawyer with her license suspended because of her activism, she assisted another pro-democracy activist Zhang Pancheng in Gansu. She was formally charged in November 2024, according to the World Organisation Against Torture.
According to a Rights Defense Network report, Zhang Zhan has once again gone on hunger strikes to protest her arbitrary detention. The detention center personnel force-fed her through a gastric tube. Reporters Without Borders cited the same source, urging international actions to secure her release in February.
The Observatory recalls that this practice constitutes ill-treatment and, in some cases, torture, violating the Convention against Torture, which China ratified in 1988. The Observatory urges Chinese authorities to immediately end all acts of harassment and ensure the physical integrity and psychological well-being of Zhang Zhan and all other journalists in China. It also calls for her release, as authorities appear to be detaining her to punish her for legitimate human rights activities.
Article 293 of the Chinese Criminal Code criminalizes the undermining of public order, widely known as “picking quarrels and provoking trouble (寻衅滋事).” The crime carries a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment. In March 2024, UN human rights chief Volker Türk described the crime as vague, urging China to amend it and release all human rights defenders, lawyers and others, who are detained based on this crime.
In 2020, Zhang was first arrested for releasing 122 clips of her visit to Wuhan to cover the COVID-19 pandemic while the government tried to hide the true scale of the disease. Ultimately, Zhang was sentenced to four years on the same criminal charge. During her earlier arrest, authorities sent Ms. Zhang for medical treatment for malnutrition after months of hunger strikes in a Shanghai prison. She pleaded not guilty during her trial and appeared in court in a wheelchair. Weighting less than 40 kilograms, Zhang consumed very small amounts of food to avoid being forcefully intubated and fed.
