A Chinese citizen journalist is in poor shape after starting a hunger strike in detention.

Zhang Zhan, 40, was arrested by Shanghai police in June and prosecuted for “picking a quarrel and provoking trouble,” after she took a trip to Wuhan to report on the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two lawyers told Radio Free Asia that they could not see her. Zhang’s lawyer, Dai Peiqing, said her client had to receive intravenous therapy and that staffers at the detention center told Dai she could see Zhang after the therapy ended. Ren Quanniu, a lawyer hired by Zhang’s mother, also said that the detention center refused his request to see Zhang without her signature.

A source close to Zhang said that she was being force-fed, RFA reported.

Zhang is a Christian who moved from her home town of Xianyang, Shaanxi province, to Shanghai in 2010. She had been a lawyer, but was barred from practicing after she wrote articles critical of the government. She travelled to Wuhan to report on the pandemic and posted on WeChat, Twitter and YouTube before being arrested.

Prior to her detention, she told RFA that she was not afraid of arrest as she was already living in a “prison,” which was China.

It was not Zhang’s first arrest. Last year, she frequently posted on WeChat in support of Hong Kong protests at the time. She was detained by Shanghai police last September for picking a quarrel and provoking trouble, and was released at the end of November.

Zhang was not the only citizen journalist to get into trouble while reporting on the pandemic. Two others, Chen Qiushi and Fang Bin, also went missing in Wuhan, where the first COVID-19 cases were recorded.

Yet another citizen journalist, Kcriss Li, disappeared in Wuhan on Feb. 26, only appearing in a video on April 22 to explain that he had been taken away for alleged disruption of public order. Li was not charged but was quarantined until March 28. He has not posted anything online since then.

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