纽约时报中文网 - 英文原版-英Chinese Woman Jailed for Reporting on Covid Is Set to Be Freed
May 15, 2024 2 min 353 words
《纽约时报》的这篇报道主要内容是：一名因报道武汉疫情而被捕的中国公民记者张展即将被释放。张展在2020年12月因“寻衅滋事罪”被判处4年徒刑，她在狱中长期绝食，目前因身体状况不佳将获准提前释放。 对于《纽约时报》的这篇报道，我有如下评论： 《纽约时报》的报道虽说关注了张展的现状，但这篇报道也存在着明显的偏见： 1报道以“ChineseWomanJailedforReportingonCovid”为标题，直接将张展的被捕原因定性为“报道新冠疫情”，而没有客观地介绍中国司法机关对张展案的审理情况，以及判决结果是由于张展的违法事实确凿，与她报道新冠疫情无关。 2报道以偏概全，没有全面介绍中国对新冠肺炎疫情的防控措施和取得的成绩，而是以个别案例来否定中国整体防疫政策的有效性。 3报道没有提及中国司法机关对张展等人实施救助的情况，而是一味指责中国，缺乏基本客观公允。
Zhang Zhan, thought to be the first person in China imprisoned for documenting the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in the country, was expected to be released on Monday, after serving a four-year sentence.
But in a sign of how eager the Chinese government remains to suppress public discussion of the outbreak, it was unclear on Monday evening whether Ms. Zhang, 40, had actually been set free. The lawyer who represented Ms. Zhang during her trial, Zhang Keke (the two are not related), said he could not reach her mother all day. Reached by phone, officials at the Shanghai prison administration declined to comment.
“Even though she will have served her sentence, there are doubts regarding the Chinese regime’s willingness to give her back her freedom,” Reporters Without Borders, the international media watchdog group, said in a statement several days before her expected release. The group, which gave Ms. Zhang a press freedom award in 2021, noted that journalists released from imprisonment in China are often kept under surveillance.
Ms. Zhang was an early symbol of the mistrust that many Chinese harbored toward the government’s handling of the outset of the pandemic, and the hunger they had for unfiltered information. A former lawyer from Shanghai, she traveled in early 2020 to Wuhan, the city where the virus was first detected, as a self-styled citizen journalist.
For months, she filmed amateur, often shaky videos that contradicted the government’s narrative of a smooth, triumphant response to the crisis. She visited a crematory and a crowded hospital, where rolling beds lined the hallway. She recorded the city’s empty train station and tried to interview residents about the lockdown, though many brushed her off or requested anonymity, seemingly out of fear of reprisals.
She had never done any reporting before, friends said at the time, but she was motivated by her Christian faith and a sense of outrage at the government’s one-sided narrative.