China to charge another citizen journalist for Wuhan COVID reporting
Fang Bin, one of the missing whistleblowers and citizen journalists arrested for reporting on the COVID-19 outbreak from the ground zero Wuhan, will be charged for “picking quarrels and provoking troubles,” after Chinese authorities dropped the more severe offence of “inciting subversion of state power,” Radio Free Asia reports.
Fang has gone missing for over a year. In February last year, he was arrested for livestream reporting the chaos and fatalities from the coronavirus at a hospital in Wuhan.
An anonymous source told RFA that Fang is still kept in police custody, while the authorities have reduced the charge from subversion to a more minor offence.
Another source surnamed Xu said the authorities seemed to have reneged on their promise to make Fang’s case public after the U.S. presidential election. Xu added that no lawyers were involved in the case, as his family members refused to cooperate.
Netizens are still banned from mentioning Fang on Chinese social media, after some were warned by police for expressing concerns.
Several citizen journalists reporting on the situation in Wuhan during the pandemic had been arrested. Among them, Zhang Zhan was jailed for four years for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” by documenting and sharing the initial stages of the outbreak on social media.
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