Canonical P1 person/case profile • Citizen journalism / press freedom
Zhang Zhan (张展) is a Chinese freelance journalist and former lawyer whose reporting from Wuhan during the early COVID-19 outbreak led to a four-year prison sentence in 2020. After completing that sentence in May 2024, she was arrested again in August 2024 and sentenced to another four years on September 19, 2025, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
2020 Wuhan reporting
CPJ reports that Zhang traveled to Wuhan and reported on the COVID-19 outbreak through Twitter/X and YouTube. She was first detained on May 14, 2020 and sentenced in December 2020 to four years in prison on the charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”
Release and second arrest
Zhang completed the first four-year sentence and was released in May 2024. CPJ reports that she resumed reporting, including interviews and documentation of social and rights issues. Shanghai police arrested her again on August 28, 2024 while she was traveling to report on another activist’s case.
Second conviction
According to CPJ, Zhang was convicted on September 19, 2025 and sentenced to another four years in prison on the same charge. CPJ reported that prosecutors accused her of spreading “false information that seriously damaged the national image” on X and YouTube. The UN Human Rights Office expressed concern about the trial and called for her release, according to CPJ.
Information-control significance
Zhang’s case spans two phases of the information-control history documented by FreeChina.live: reporting from the first months of the COVID-19 outbreak and later independent online reporting after release. It illustrates how content distribution through overseas social platforms can coexist with person-level criminal enforcement.
Sources
- Committee to Protect Journalists — Zhang Zhan case profile
- CPJ — second conviction, September 19, 2025
- CPJ and 58 groups — May 2025 statement
Related FreeChina.live research
China Information Control & Circumvention History
Evidence note: Charges and prosecution claims are attributed to the authorities or reporting sources. Advocacy organizations’ assessments are identified as their own positions rather than adopted as independent factual conclusions.
Current situation
Zhang appealed the September 19, 2025 verdict in late September 2025; during the appeal her whereabouts were unknown for several days before it was confirmed on November 18, 2025 that she was being held in Shanghai Women’s Prison. Her family and lawyer were not granted visits. In March 2026 she was denied access to a lawyer of her own choosing, obstructing her appeal. In May 2026 Amnesty International reported that her health had deteriorated to an alarming, life-threatening level — serious gastric illness and significant weight loss — and that she had reportedly been on hunger strike since January 2025. In August 2026 Reporters Without Borders reported that she had been moved to Zone 5 of Shanghai’s Pudong Detention Centre, with no updates on her health status. The November 2025 prison location and the August 2026 detention-centre location are both recorded with dates; neither report disproves movement between facilities.
Media Profile & Archive: Zhang Zhan / 张展 — Media Profile & Archive