China releases journalist jailed for COVID-19 coverage

BEIJING

Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan has been released from prison after serving four years for her coverage of Beijing's COVID-19 response, according to a video released by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

However, rights groups said Zhang was still under surveillance and that her freedom was extremely limited.

Zhang, a former lawyer, traveled to the central city of Wuhan in February 2020 to report on the chaos at the pandemic's epicenter, questioning the authorities' handling of the outbreak in her smartphone videos.

She was detained in May 2020 and sentenced seven months later to four years in jail for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble," a charge routinely used to suppress dissent.

Zhang was due to be released on May 13 but a lack of information about her whereabouts had sparked concern among rights groups and activists that she could still be detained.

A short video featuring a pajama-clad Zhang shared by the RSF yesterday appeared to show she had been released as scheduled.

While Zhang appears to have been released, "her contact with the outside world and daily life are all under surveillance", Jane Wang, a U.K.-based activist involved in the campaign to release and locate Zhang, wrote on social media platform X.

"She only has limited freedom," Wang said.