7 ms·

A citizen journalist who shined a light on Wuhan's plight may die in prison

94 points by hui-zheng 5y ago

redis_mlc 5y ago
FYI: for readers who are unaware, the first covid-19 sequence released from China was unauthorized - he released it through a partner lab in Australia. The research scientist immediately had his lab in China raided and he was fired. So the CCP was not only active in continuing international flights while domestic flights were halted, but the CCP was actively suppressing patient counts and the sequence itself.
- eloisius 5y ago
  Not to doubt your claims, but do you have any sources for them? I’ve never heard this.
  - 0x38B 5y ago
    From a Time.com article (1): > Afterward, Zhang returned to Shanghai and prepared to travel to Beijing for more meetings. On the morning of Jan. 11, he was on the runway at Shanghai Hongqiao Airport when he received a phone call from a colleague, Professor Edward Holmes at the University of Sydney. A few minutes later, Zhang was strapped in for takeoff and still on the phone—then Holmes asked permission to release the genome publicly. “I asked Eddie to give me one minute to think,’” Zhang recalls. “Then I said ok.” For the next two hours, Zhang was cocooned from the world at 35,000 feet, but Holmes’ post on the website Virological.org sent shockwaves through the global scientific community. 1: https://time.com/5882918/zhang-yongzhen-interview-china-coronavirus-genome/ https://time.com/5882918/zhang-yongzhen-interview-china-coro...
    - pphysch 5y ago
      This article directly contradicts the conspiracy theory that redis_mlc implied: > Yet Zhang denies reports in Western media that his laboratory suffered any prolonged closure, and instead says it was working furiously during the early days of the outbreak. “From late January to April, we screened more than 30,000 viral samples,” says Fan Wu, a researcher who assisted Zhang with the first SARS-CoV-2 sequencing. Furthermore, > And, in fact, Zhang insists he first uploaded the genome to the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) on Jan. 5—an assertion corroborated by the submission date listed on the U.S government institution’s Genbank. “When we posted the genome on Jan. 5, the United States certainly knew about this virus,” he says. So was Washington also in on this cover-up conspiracy...?
  - hulahoof 5y ago
    Never heard this either, though it is plausible - I believe Australia was the first to sequence outside of China, and had extremely low cases reported at the time. This article mentions the Chinese lab released images of the sequence which is what assisted the Australian lab in reproduction[1], maybe those images is what they are referring to? [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-29/wuhan-coronavirus-created-in-australian-lab-outside-of-china/11906390 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-29/wuhan-coronavirus-cre...
justicezyx 5y ago
She should be released. But probably she refused to accept the offered term, likely to admit wrong doing according to the Chinese law. The crux of this type of incident is that, one who are aligned herself with western style of morality, would find Chinese laws often to be incompatible with those values. Often such conflict were named "authoratarian" "dictative" etc. As a matter of fact, just like a lot of laws were passed in US without much democratic debate, most laws in China have no democratic debate in the process. There is public opinion collection phase, which does not have a open process. And that were seldom publicized for obvious distrust of the common people's judgement. Then this lady probably did herself the ultimate sacrifice in practicing hungry strike, for proclaiming her own righteousness. Unfortunately, this type of self sacrifice was not useful in changing the people's perception and mentality. I always suggest people like her, western alike, to take a constructive approach to alter the CCP's behavior. I.e., one can always start by educating the normal citizens about the western values, one person after another. Explicit and revolutionary conflicts are exciting, and probably can bring changes really quick. Like CCP did before, transformed the largest nation on earth from an old emperism led system to a socializism totalitarian system, in less than a few decades. But that causes a lot of human suffering, probably the worst in human history. So, as I said, I want Ms. Zhang to keep herself healthy and strong. If she was imprisoned wrongly. Let the system know that you want to fight in a way that yielding is not an option, by actually living well.
- chii 5y ago
  > one can always start by educating the normal citizens about the western values, one person after another. this is where you, if you started practising this, would be moved to a re-education camp. And then you'd change your tune after coming back out.
  - thenberlin 5y ago
    Yeah, the whole "she should be more polite about it, and really she brought this on herself for not accepting the terms of a made-up agreement she was not actually offered that's not actually mentioned in the article" thing is pretty absurd/transparent. This woman put her life on the line to do the whole world a service in a time of crisis. Her situation now reflects nothing more than the umbrage her government has taken with information getting out to the rest of the world about what was really happening in Wuhan. Full stop.
pphysch 5y ago
* of self-imposed hunger-strike, ostensibly despite the best efforts of the prison authorities.
- thenberlin 5y ago
  ** as the only available form of protest against her detention, arrest and conviction for the sharing of information from ground zero in the early days of what would become a global pandemic
  - pphysch 5y ago
    How do you know that?
    - thenberlin 5y ago
      Because it's in the article? And you can certainly find out all about it elsewhere on the internet? What are you insinuating as the alternative, by the way? She's doing it for kicks?
      - pphysch 5y ago
        I would wager she was a vulnerable person (just watch her videos, they're still up) who made some poor choices was preyed on by Western propagandists who encouraged her to snowball her plight and garner media attention. Probably fed her lies that she would become an international symbol of oppression like Anne Frank. Unfortunately for her handlers, such narratives have been overplayed and attention is a scarce resource nowadays. Needless to day, I hope she ends up safe and healthy through this ordeal and isn't driven to suicide for worthless ideological points.
        thenberlin 5y ago
        Huh, so trying to open up access to real information (instead of, you know, propaganda) about what was happening on the ground in the early days of a pandemic is now being a "Western propagandist?" Would you have said the same if the outbreak had been in, say, Cleveland? Because, if it had, I can guarantee you there would have been loads of on-the-ground reports from citizen journalists streaming online from minute zero (including from some number of folks who might be "vulnerable" people in their own lives!) and not a single one of those people would have gone to jail for it. Also, to be sure, I don't think that last bit was all that "needless to say."
paperwasp42 5y ago
It'd be a travesty if she was lost. Her videos shined a light in the chaotic darkness of the beginning of this pandemic. I've been concerned lately that a lot of articles critical of China's government have comment sections filled with things like, "America is no better, just look at their prisons" or "Europe has no right to judge, look at how they've handled the migrant crisis", etc. Or, worse, accusing the authors of being xenophobic or racist only because they cast China in a poor light. There seems to be an odd desire right now to ignore any injustices going on in other countries, in favor of critiquing Western nations. Or even downplaying and excusing foreign corruption, to try to highlight how bad Western corruption is. This sort of Victim Olympics does nothing to help the foreign human rights activists, such as Zhang Zhan, who are crying out to the world and begging for our attention. China's corruption is a unique beast that has unique impacts on its victims. Journalists like Zhang Zhan have highlighted this and presented rock-solid evidence. I dearly hope the Western world can quit its culture war squabbles for long enough to listen and offer all possible aid. It's increasingly hard to hear their plight over the sound of the West tearing itself to pieces.
- justicezyx 5y ago
  > It'd be a travesty if she was lost. She probably will be saved. It's a lot of troubles if she would be harmed. All those will be blamed on CCP, and the lower officials who are handling the case in the frontline will be the scapegoat. Everyone in the chain of command is incentives to ensure her safety. But many in the West would want her to die. In order to denote the conflicts. > Her videos shined a light in the chaotic darkness of the beginning of this pandemic. Yep. But if you actually watched her video, most of them are actually herself speaking the darkness, seldom there is an actual scene of darkness caught on her camera. I think she was mostly a very conscious person of the surrounding. But I highly doubt her news reporting skills and objectiveness. > I've been concerned lately that a lot of articles critical of China's government have comment sections filled with things like, "America is no better, just look at their prisons" or "Europe has no right to judge, look at how they've handled the migrant crisis", etc. Could you double check your statistics, and making sure that your impression was not exaggerated. And make sure that you are not siloed in some algorithm trap as well. If you think about it, there is actually negligible amount of articles that are not critical of Chinese government. China is literally everyone's scapegoat for anything that is tangible for anyone to joke or divert the public's attention. If you are seeing comments showing alternative views. That's a good thing! It's good not because they trust China. It's good because people are thinking more of the situation, and what's good for their living. > Or, worse, accusing the authors of being xenophobic or racist only because they cast China in a poor light. I mean, given what happened during the pandemic, and the Asian hate crime surge. It's not a stretch for some concerned readers (just like you) to have such emotions. I myself were seriously concerned. And I bought 2 hand guns, 2 rifles, during the pandemic. Because I am a Chinese living in US, and I am concerned of my own and my wife and 2 young kids' safety. (And it turns out shooting as a sport is kind of fun, but that's a different story). > There seems to be an odd desire right now to ignore any injustices going on in other countries, in favor of critiquing Western nations. Really? Where are your evidence? > Or even downplaying and excusing foreign corruption, to try to highlight how bad Western corruption is. Name some examples. You are stating sweeping concept without evidences. The global media is predominantly Western. I see no such sentiment reflected widely.
thuccess129 5y ago
There is that Sarco drug she can self administer.
a0-prw 5y ago
Julian Assange, who shined a light on US warcrimes, might die in prison.

94 points by hui-zheng 5y ago

FYI: for readers who are unaware, the first covid-19 sequence released from China was unauthorized - he released it through a partner lab in Australia. The research scientist immediately had his lab in China raided and he was fired. So the CCP was not only active in continuing international flights while domestic flights were halted, but the CCP was actively suppressing patient counts and the sequence itself.

eloisius 5y ago
Not to doubt your claims, but do you have any sources for them? I’ve never heard this.
- 0x38B 5y ago
  From a Time.com article (1): > Afterward, Zhang returned to Shanghai and prepared to travel to Beijing for more meetings. On the morning of Jan. 11, he was on the runway at Shanghai Hongqiao Airport when he received a phone call from a colleague, Professor Edward Holmes at the University of Sydney. A few minutes later, Zhang was strapped in for takeoff and still on the phone—then Holmes asked permission to release the genome publicly. “I asked Eddie to give me one minute to think,’” Zhang recalls. “Then I said ok.” For the next two hours, Zhang was cocooned from the world at 35,000 feet, but Holmes’ post on the website Virological.org sent shockwaves through the global scientific community. 1: https://time.com/5882918/zhang-yongzhen-interview-china-coronavirus-genome/ https://time.com/5882918/zhang-yongzhen-interview-china-coro...
  - pphysch 5y ago
    This article directly contradicts the conspiracy theory that redis_mlc implied: > Yet Zhang denies reports in Western media that his laboratory suffered any prolonged closure, and instead says it was working furiously during the early days of the outbreak. “From late January to April, we screened more than 30,000 viral samples,” says Fan Wu, a researcher who assisted Zhang with the first SARS-CoV-2 sequencing. Furthermore, > And, in fact, Zhang insists he first uploaded the genome to the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) on Jan. 5—an assertion corroborated by the submission date listed on the U.S government institution’s Genbank. “When we posted the genome on Jan. 5, the United States certainly knew about this virus,” he says. So was Washington also in on this cover-up conspiracy...?
- hulahoof 5y ago
  Never heard this either, though it is plausible - I believe Australia was the first to sequence outside of China, and had extremely low cases reported at the time. This article mentions the Chinese lab released images of the sequence which is what assisted the Australian lab in reproduction[1], maybe those images is what they are referring to? [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-29/wuhan-coronavirus-created-in-australian-lab-outside-of-china/11906390 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-29/wuhan-coronavirus-cre...

justicezyx 5y ago

She should be released. But probably she refused to accept the offered term, likely to admit wrong doing according to the Chinese law. The crux of this type of incident is that, one who are aligned herself with western style of morality, would find Chinese laws often to be incompatible with those values. Often such conflict were named "authoratarian" "dictative" etc. As a matter of fact, just like a lot of laws were passed in US without much democratic debate, most laws in China have no democratic debate in the process. There is public opinion collection phase, which does not have a open process. And that were seldom publicized for obvious distrust of the common people's judgement. Then this lady probably did herself the ultimate sacrifice in practicing hungry strike, for proclaiming her own righteousness. Unfortunately, this type of self sacrifice was not useful in changing the people's perception and mentality. I always suggest people like her, western alike, to take a constructive approach to alter the CCP's behavior. I.e., one can always start by educating the normal citizens about the western values, one person after another. Explicit and revolutionary conflicts are exciting, and probably can bring changes really quick. Like CCP did before, transformed the largest nation on earth from an old emperism led system to a socializism totalitarian system, in less than a few decades. But that causes a lot of human suffering, probably the worst in human history. So, as I said, I want Ms. Zhang to keep herself healthy and strong. If she was imprisoned wrongly. Let the system know that you want to fight in a way that yielding is not an option, by actually living well.

chii 5y ago
> one can always start by educating the normal citizens about the western values, one person after another. this is where you, if you started practising this, would be moved to a re-education camp. And then you'd change your tune after coming back out.
- thenberlin 5y ago
  Yeah, the whole "she should be more polite about it, and really she brought this on herself for not accepting the terms of a made-up agreement she was not actually offered that's not actually mentioned in the article" thing is pretty absurd/transparent. This woman put her life on the line to do the whole world a service in a time of crisis. Her situation now reflects nothing more than the umbrage her government has taken with information getting out to the rest of the world about what was really happening in Wuhan. Full stop.

pphysch 5y ago

* of self-imposed hunger-strike, ostensibly despite the best efforts of the prison authorities.

thenberlin 5y ago
** as the only available form of protest against her detention, arrest and conviction for the sharing of information from ground zero in the early days of what would become a global pandemic
- pphysch 5y ago
  How do you know that?
  - thenberlin 5y ago
    Because it's in the article? And you can certainly find out all about it elsewhere on the internet? What are you insinuating as the alternative, by the way? She's doing it for kicks?
    - pphysch 5y ago
      I would wager she was a vulnerable person (just watch her videos, they're still up) who made some poor choices was preyed on by Western propagandists who encouraged her to snowball her plight and garner media attention. Probably fed her lies that she would become an international symbol of oppression like Anne Frank. Unfortunately for her handlers, such narratives have been overplayed and attention is a scarce resource nowadays. Needless to day, I hope she ends up safe and healthy through this ordeal and isn't driven to suicide for worthless ideological points.
      - thenberlin 5y ago
        Huh, so trying to open up access to real information (instead of, you know, propaganda) about what was happening on the ground in the early days of a pandemic is now being a "Western propagandist?" Would you have said the same if the outbreak had been in, say, Cleveland? Because, if it had, I can guarantee you there would have been loads of on-the-ground reports from citizen journalists streaming online from minute zero (including from some number of folks who might be "vulnerable" people in their own lives!) and not a single one of those people would have gone to jail for it. Also, to be sure, I don't think that last bit was all that "needless to say."

paperwasp42 5y ago

It'd be a travesty if she was lost. Her videos shined a light in the chaotic darkness of the beginning of this pandemic. I've been concerned lately that a lot of articles critical of China's government have comment sections filled with things like, "America is no better, just look at their prisons" or "Europe has no right to judge, look at how they've handled the migrant crisis", etc. Or, worse, accusing the authors of being xenophobic or racist only because they cast China in a poor light. There seems to be an odd desire right now to ignore any injustices going on in other countries, in favor of critiquing Western nations. Or even downplaying and excusing foreign corruption, to try to highlight how bad Western corruption is. This sort of Victim Olympics does nothing to help the foreign human rights activists, such as Zhang Zhan, who are crying out to the world and begging for our attention. China's corruption is a unique beast that has unique impacts on its victims. Journalists like Zhang Zhan have highlighted this and presented rock-solid evidence. I dearly hope the Western world can quit its culture war squabbles for long enough to listen and offer all possible aid. It's increasingly hard to hear their plight over the sound of the West tearing itself to pieces.

justicezyx 5y ago
> It'd be a travesty if she was lost. She probably will be saved. It's a lot of troubles if she would be harmed. All those will be blamed on CCP, and the lower officials who are handling the case in the frontline will be the scapegoat. Everyone in the chain of command is incentives to ensure her safety. But many in the West would want her to die. In order to denote the conflicts. > Her videos shined a light in the chaotic darkness of the beginning of this pandemic. Yep. But if you actually watched her video, most of them are actually herself speaking the darkness, seldom there is an actual scene of darkness caught on her camera. I think she was mostly a very conscious person of the surrounding. But I highly doubt her news reporting skills and objectiveness. > I've been concerned lately that a lot of articles critical of China's government have comment sections filled with things like, "America is no better, just look at their prisons" or "Europe has no right to judge, look at how they've handled the migrant crisis", etc. Could you double check your statistics, and making sure that your impression was not exaggerated. And make sure that you are not siloed in some algorithm trap as well. If you think about it, there is actually negligible amount of articles that are not critical of Chinese government. China is literally everyone's scapegoat for anything that is tangible for anyone to joke or divert the public's attention. If you are seeing comments showing alternative views. That's a good thing! It's good not because they trust China. It's good because people are thinking more of the situation, and what's good for their living. > Or, worse, accusing the authors of being xenophobic or racist only because they cast China in a poor light. I mean, given what happened during the pandemic, and the Asian hate crime surge. It's not a stretch for some concerned readers (just like you) to have such emotions. I myself were seriously concerned. And I bought 2 hand guns, 2 rifles, during the pandemic. Because I am a Chinese living in US, and I am concerned of my own and my wife and 2 young kids' safety. (And it turns out shooting as a sport is kind of fun, but that's a different story). > There seems to be an odd desire right now to ignore any injustices going on in other countries, in favor of critiquing Western nations. Really? Where are your evidence? > Or even downplaying and excusing foreign corruption, to try to highlight how bad Western corruption is. Name some examples. You are stating sweeping concept without evidences. The global media is predominantly Western. I see no such sentiment reflected widely.

thuccess129 5y ago

There is that Sarco drug she can self administer.

a0-prw 5y ago

Julian Assange, who shined a light on US warcrimes, might die in prison.