Chinese Authorities Arrest Citizen Journalist for Reporting About CCP Virus in Wuhan

Passengers wearing face masks arrive at the Hankou railway station in Wuhan, China, on April 11, 2020. Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images

Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, who traveled to Wuhan to report on the outbreak of the CCP virus, was recently arrested, becoming the fourth known independent journalist to be silenced by authorities for attempting to document the effects of the pandemic.

Zhang’s arrest was reported on June 20 by Weiquanwang, a Chinese website devoted to news about human rights activists. It stated that local authorities arrested Zhang on June 19, after the prosecutor’s office in Pudong, a district in Shanghai, approved her arrest on the charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”