China releasing 'Citizen journalist' who shared videos from Wuhan when COVID broke

‘Citizen journalist’ who ‘disappeared’ after posting videos of Chinese hospitals overcrowded with COVID patients’ dead bodies is reportedly being released from Chinese prison, his family and friends have claimed.

Beginning in early 2020, Fang Bin and other people in the public who gained notoriety as citizen journalists published information on the pandemic on the internet and social media, exposing Chinese officials who were criticised for their inability to contain the spread.

An image of a sheet of paper with the words “All citizens resist, hand power back to the people” was the last video that Fang, a vendor of traditional Chinese apparel, posted on Twitter.

The Communist Party in power is attempting to dominate the nation’s narrative by repressing criticism of China’s early response to the pandemic. Fang’s case is a part of this campaign.

He was supposed to be released on Sunday, according to two sources who declined to be named out of concern for retaliation from the government.

One of them said that Fang was given a three-year prison term for “picking fights and causing trouble,” a broad accusation typically levelled at political dissidents.

Two offices of Wuhan’s public security bureau refused to give their information office’s phone number or respond to any queries.

On Sunday afternoon, calls to a court that allegedly sentenced Fang went unanswered. A woman from a different court, which allegedly handled Fang’s appeal, asserted that she was not authorised to respond to any queries.

Early in 2020, the 11 million-person metropolis of Wuhan in the Hubei region of central China was ravaged by the early COVID outburst.

Apart from ambulances and security personnel, the streets were deserted for months during the 76-day lockdown.

How Fang Bin disappeared

With the help of smart phones and social media accounts at the time, a tiny number of citizen journalists attempted to challenge the Communist Party’s strictly regulated monopoly on information by telling their own experiences as well as those of others.

Despite their modest movement, the scale was unlike any major disease outbreak or disaster that had ever occurred in China.

However, the data they provided soon got them into trouble. Fang and Chen Qiushi, a second citizen journalist, vanished in February.

In September 2021, Chen reappeared on his friend’s live YouTube video broadcast and claimed he had been depressed. He did not, however, go into specifics on his disappearance.

In December 2020, Zhang Zhan, another citizen journalist who had covered the outbreak’s early stages, was given a four-year prison term for inciting fights and igniting problems. Eight months later, according to her attorney, she had staged a protracted hunger strike and was now unwell.

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