May 22 (UPI) — Zhang Zhan, a Chinese blogger and citizen journalist imprisoned four years in China for her coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, said in a recorded statement that she has been released from prison, though worries remain over her safety.
The video was published online Tuesday by Jane Wang, a Chinese activist based in Britain who has been advocating for Zhang’s release.
“Today, we finally received confirmation that Zhang Zhan …. has been released from prison,” Wang said in a statement. “However, she only has limited freedom.”
The recording is 28 seconds long and poorly lit. In it, Zhang states she was released from prison at 5 a.m. May 13 and was taken to her older brother’s house in Shanghai, according to an English-language translation by Reporters Without Borders.
“Thank you, everyone, for your help and concern,” she said, according to the translation. “I wish you all the best. There is not much more what I can say.”
Zhang was arrested in China on May 14, 2020, and convicted that December for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” with her early coverage of the COVID-19 outbreak from Wuhan, ground zero of the pandemic.
She had posted hundreds of videos on social media, including YouTube, detailing the situation in Wuhan amid the pandemic and China’s repressive response to it, with her last video posted the day she was detained.
Her sentence, served at Shanghai Women’s Prison, was completed on May 13, but no one had heard from her until Tuesday, leaving some to consider that she had been “disappeared.”
The lack of confirmation of her release prompted the U.S. State Department to release a statement of concern last week.
Wang said she cannot confirm where Zhang was when the video was shot nor who recorded it with her.
She remarked that Zhang appeared to have regained some of the weight she had lost from her hunger strikes but looks “pale and tired, her eyes puffy.”
Before the end of her sentence, there were concerns over what freedom she would be released into. Reporters Without Borders last month said journalists detained for their work in China are often surveilled once released and banned from traveling abroad.
“It is a relief to hear from Zhang Zhan again, but we remain concerned about her safety and well-being,” Wang said Tuesday.
“There is a long way to go before she recovers fully from her jail ordeal. Like other former political prisoners, she is subject to intrusive government surveillance and harassment. She is at high risk of being ‘disappeared’ or arrested again.”
Reporters Without Borders reiterated that concern.
“We’re worried about her situation under strict surveillance,” it said on a statement. “Our call for her full & unconditional release remains urgent.”