Current custody · Region: Mainland China · Last verified: 2026-09-16
Research status: Details pending / research in progress.
Languages: EN · 中文 · FR · DE · ES
Current custody and release / sentence-completion status
Current continuous custody start: 2024-08-28. Her previous four-year term ended with her actual release on 2024-05-13; the current custody period is separate.
Sentence / judgment: On 2025-09-19, sentenced to a second four-year prison term.
Release / sentence-completion date: The reproduced 2025 judgment states credited sentence-term dates ending 2028-08-27, but Free China does not present that endpoint as a guaranteed future release date. Appeal, custody-credit, prison-administration and later legal changes remain subject to verification.
Evidence rule: The sentence-term endpoint is reported only as stated in the reproduced judgment. Actual release status must be established by later controlling court, prison, appellate, or release evidence.
Last verified: 2026-09-01.
Verified profile
Zhang Zhan is a Chinese freelance citizen journalist and former lawyer. CPJ and Amnesty document her Wuhan COVID-19 reporting in 2020, a first four-year sentence, release in May 2024, re-arrest in August 2024, and a second four-year sentence imposed on September 19, 2025.
Verified sources
- Committee to Protect Journalists profile
- CPJ, Sept. 19, 2025
- Amnesty International, Dec. 2, 2025
- Amnesty International, May 15, 2026
Research still pending
Original Wuhan video reports and social-media posts; 2020 and 2025 indictment/judgment/appeal records; UN/EU/government statements; trial-access records; multilingual media timeline; family/lawyer statements; photos, video and audio.
Last research audit: August 29, 2026.
Evidence update — September 2, 2026
The media archive now contains a 10-source chronology spanning Zhang Zhan’s 2020 Wuhan COVID-19 reporting and first arrest/trial, her verified release on May 13, 2024, re-detention beginning August 28, 2024, and the second four-year sentence imposed on September 19, 2025. The chronology uses CPJ, Radio Free Asia, Reuters and Amnesty International while keeping media reports, NGO assessments and legal allegations as distinct evidence layers.
Custody/release-date boundary: Zhang is currently recorded as imprisoned serving the second four-year sentence. A reproduced 2025 judgment states credited sentence-term dates ending August 27, 2028. Free China records that legal-document endpoint as evidence but does not treat it as a guaranteed future release date; actual release, appellate and prison-administration changes require later controlling evidence.
Health, hunger-strike, forced-feeding and detention-condition claims remain attributed to the reporting, family or rights-monitoring sources carrying them unless independently corroborated by primary records.
Languages: EN · 简中 · 繁中 · FR · DE · ES
Corrections and additional primary evidence are welcome.
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