Summary:
Zhang Zhan, a Chinese citizen journalist, is set to be released after four years of imprisonment for her coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan in 2020. She provided independent reporting on the situation in Wuhan, contrary to the official narrative pushed by the Chinese regime. Despite facing conviction and being sentenced to four years in jail for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble," Zhan's reporting shed light on the severity of the outbreak. She documented overcrowded hospitals and crematoriums, highlighting the grim reality of the situation. Throughout her imprisonment, concerns were raised about her health as she engaged in hunger strikes and was force-fed through nasal tubes.
Such a garbage propaganda article, and with multiple spelling and grammar mistakes. Zhang Zhan is an anti-CPC agitator who participated in the Hong Kong color revolution; during her 2020 COVID reporting, she got interviews from two overseas media outlets: Radio Free Asia (CIA mouthpiece for propaganda against China and the DPRK mainly) and The Epoch Times (far-right Falun Gong cult mouthpiece). Such an "independent citizen journalist"!
She reported misleading things about the pandemic (as proven in trial, contrary to claims by NGOs and the article you shared that she was sentenced to prison for nebulous reasons), and both argued that the pandemic was worse than the government had reported and that lockdown measures were too restrictive (obviously a very principled person and not just a contrarian hoping to squeeze into the cracks of any differences of opinion to oppose the Chinese govt.).
Probably because FirstPost is not a credible new source according to Indians I know. It started off as Forbes India which then got acquired by a corporate conglomerate to push xenophobic and right wing opinion pieces. For example How the protests in the US are anti-Semitic
How America should treat "paid protestors": Like India does
How Putin and Xi want to build a nuclear power plant on the moon
Etc. Not quite Fox News levels but it's pretty close.
Good call. I don't know if the new information about the release from being jailed is fake news, here's an older source
One of the first lines in Firstpost's article is:
Zhan, who was convicted and sentenced in December 2020, will be released on Monday, according to The Guardian.
The article from The Guardian says she'll be released on May 13, and quotes HRW and Amnesty Int. directors. It was released about an hour and a half before Firstpost's article, and the latter plagiarizes the misleading summary of her charge from them:
The Guardian:
Zhang was arrested in May 2020 and later sentenced to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a charge often used against activists.
Firstpost:
In December 2020, Zhan was sentenced to four years in jail for the offence of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. Activists in China are often convicted under this offence.
You know, I saw that in the modlog (this post that got removed) and thought that was a rather odd. The Guardian may be a very liberal outlet, but it's actually towards the better end of the spectrum when it comes to that sort of thing. Maybe a mod mixed it up with something else and made a mistake? I didn't read the article linked to in the removed post, but I can see where a mod might have made the assumption that it was yet another racist anti-China misinfo article of the kind that do get posted too regularly and are from trash tabloid sites. There was also another commenter around that time who was unironically spouting Falun Gong cringe garbage that maybe you were mistaken for. I don't know. Bad article or not, it does seem to me that that post did not deserve removal for rule 1.
Edit: Yeah, I just checked and there are a ton of posts posted on lemmy.ml/c/worldnews aka !worldnews@lemmy.ml that link to The Guardian. Must have been an error.
Yup. Surprised me as well. I've thought of it being an ok enough source, just apply normal media criticism. But Lemmy doesn't have transparency on whose mod decision it was or how to report those which seem to be on false premises or accidentally... Maybe some day.
Yeah, I think that's pretty much how it is on most instances. Some don't even publish a modlog. You just have to message a mod of that comm when that happens and if correcting it is important to you, even if you don't know if it was the mod who removed it.
Also, if you are posting only articles that reinforce the western narrative on global events, you might be considered with some suspicion around here, and for good reason. This place is a leftist space, and the kind of thing you might get praised for posting on reddit, here will be seen for what it almost certainly is: pro-US/pro-NATO propaganda. Even so, that doesn't mean your posts will (or should) be removed if they're posted in good faith, from a reliable source, etc. At the very least, it gives good leftists the opportunity to debunk the nonsense. However, it is very rare that someone post only those kinds of articles and genuinely are participating in good faith.
Edit: For example, this post, the thread of which we're making these comments in right now... it really is a trash article as has already been pointed out by Robinnn and CloudAtlas. The title alone is blatantly false. I would understand if this post got removed for misinformation as well as being from a reactionary source, even if your other post sourcing The Guardian should not have been.
I usually just lurk and post only if I see a topic which doesn't seem to be posted yet. Seems like eastern police state & oligarchy has been that lately, and I think it's definitely something that is interesting from a communist human rights point of view. I don't know if they're taboo topics or just happenstance that I saw two of these lately before they hit here.
They shouldve jailed those who "independently reported" on COVID and propagated "vaccine skepiticm" here in the west too.
Relevant quote from the trial.
This court believes that defendant Zhang Zhan repeatedly used WeChat, Twitter, Youtube, and other online media platforms to assume the role of a personal witness and spread indiscriminately fabricated video and written content during a critical period in the effort to control the spread of the coronavirus in Wuhan. This content was published with the aim of distorting the record of, and commentary on, Wuhan’s coronavirus control and prevention efforts, accepting interviews with foreign media outlets including the Epoch Times and Radio Free Asia, thus causing the spread of the relevant false information through networks at home and abroad. The extensive dissemination of this content on the Internet, newspapers, and other media has caused a great number of netizens to see, comment on, and repost it, misleading the public and creating serious public disorder. This behavior constitutes the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble. The facts presented by the prosecution are clear, the evidence sufficient, the defendant convicted of the charges, and the court believes the sentencing recommendations are appropriate.
