Chinese blogger released: he documented the start of the pandemic

Chinese blogger Fang Bin, who documented the start of the corona pandemic in Wuhan, has been released after three years in prison. The “citizen journalist” was arrested in February 2020 after posting videos of body bags and overcrowded hospitals in the central Chinese metropolis. As the American broadcaster Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Wednesday, authorities do not want him in Wuhan or in the capital Beijing after his release, where the 48-year-old tried in vain to stay with his children.

Through his dramatic videos, the world got a first impression of the seriousness of the viral disease. However, the shopkeeper was sentenced to three years in prison in December on charges of “starting a fight and provoking trouble”. Fang Bin was released on Sunday.

lawyer arrested

Activists pointed to the similar case of 39-year-old Zhang Zhan. The lawyer was even sentenced to four years in prison in December 2020 because she also reported on the virus outbreak. After her arrest in May 2020, according to press reports, Zhang Zhan went on a hunger strike, was sometimes force-fed and lost up to 40 kilograms.

After the then unknown, devastating viral disease was initially largely covered up in Wuhan at the end of 2019, a lockdown was imposed on the eleven million metropolis at the end of January 2020. However, with the arrival of the much faster-spreading Omicron virus variant from early 2022, China’s subsequent zero-Covid strategy of nationwide lockdown, curfew, enforced quarantine and mass testing has been difficult to sustain.

Zero tolerance policy abolished

In an abrupt twist, the zero-tolerance policy was abandoned in December 2022, despite the fact that the elderly population in particular was under-vaccinated and hospitals were caught unprepared. A huge corona wave rolled through January and February through the 1.4 billion inhabitants.

Officially, China has reported only about 120,000 corona deaths to the World Health Organization (WHO), almost half of them this winter. However, various foreign estimates put about one million deaths. (oee/sda/dpa)