LONDON, May 14, 2025 — A coalition of 62 press freedom and human rights NGOs led by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and including the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation called for the release of Chinese journalist Zhang Zhan on May 14, the 5th anniversary of her first arrest. Her health has severely deteriorated due to her intermittent hunger strikes in protest of her arbitrary detention — she must be immediately released.
On May 14 2020, Zhang Zhan was arrested while covering the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, the city where the pandemic began, as reprisal for her reporting. Despite having already served a four-year prison sentence, the journalist is now being prosecuted a second time for reporting on human rights violations by the Chinese regime. According to RSF sources, the journalist will soon be tried but the date of her hearing is still unknown. She remains detained in the Pudong Detention Centre in Shanghai, facing an additional 5 years in prison.
In a joint statement, the coalition expressed its concern over Zhang Zhan’s health, as she continues to go on intermittent hunger strikes to protest her arbitrary detention. She was hospitalised twice in 2021 due to severe malnutrition. In January 2025, Zhang Zhan started her hunger strike again in protest of her second arrest. In response, detention centre personnel have subjected her to force-feeding through a gastric tube – a practice considered under international treaties as ill-treatment, and in some cases torture.
“RSF, together with a coalition of international NGOs, is sounding the alarm over the prolonged and arbitrary detention of Zhang Zhan, a Chinese journalist who has been harshly punished for reporting on matters of serious public interest for five years. Her health continues to deteriorate — the Chinese regime must end the journalist’s suffering and release her without further delay so she can receive adequate, independent medical care. We also call on the international community to amplify our call and pressure the Chinese regime to free Zhang Zhan and the 124 other journalists currently detained in China.
Zhang Zhan was apprehended by the police for the second time on August 28, 2024 — just three months after completing her four-year prison sentence — while travelling to her hometown in Shaanxi, a province in northwest China. In the weeks leading up to her second arrest, Zhang had returned to her reporting, covering the harassment of activists in China on social media.
Before her first arrest, Zhang Zhan posted more than 100 videos on social media documenting the outbreak of COVID-19. Seven months after she was apprehended, the journalist was sentenced to four years in prison by a Shanghai court on the charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” RSF has campaigned for her release throughout her imprisonment and repeatedly warned about the ill treatment she has been subjected to in prison.
China is the world’s biggest prison for journalists and press freedom defenders with at least 125 media workers currently behind bars, and ranks 178th out of 180 countries in the 2025 RSFWorld Press Freedom Index.
