Zhang Zhan

Zhang Zhan is a Chinese citizen journalist and former lawyer who travelled to Wuhan in February 2020, from where she reported on the impact of the lockdown measures imposed in the city in response to the COVID-19 outbreak there, and questioned the handling of the crisis by authorities. She was detained in May 2020, and was sentenced in December 2020 to four years imprisonment on the charges of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble". She is the first citizen journalist to be sentenced for reporting on the pandemic in China, although at least ten journalists and commentators were known to have been arrested for their coronavirus reporting as of February 2021.