In February 2020, the 38-year-old former attorney went to Wuhan, China to report on the chaos at the pandemic's center. Her investigation revealed the truth about the origin of the COVID virus, and she often questioned authorities' handling of the outbreak in her smartphone videos. Jonathan Dengler of ChinaAid says Zhang Zhan's decision to share her findings worldwide was only the beginning of her troubles.
"In 2020, she was suddenly taken away by Chinese officials and detained, and she was sentenced with four years, charged of picking quarrels and provoking trouble, and she remains in prison right now for exposing the lies of the Chinese Communist Party," Dengler summarizes.
Since Zhan's imprisonment, she has been on a hunger strike to protest the allegations against her, though she has reportedly been force-fed through nasal tubes.
"Unfortunately her health has just deteriorated dramatically over the last year and a half," the ChinaAid spokesman relays. "Before her detainment, she weighed around 165 pounds, and recently it was reported that now her weight has dropped down to under 90. So she's lost almost half of her weight."
Earlier this month, her family shared that Zhan is actually "close to death."
Next month, Zhang Zhan is to receive the Lin Zhao Freedom Award for her bravery and determination in exposing the Chinese Communist Party's hand in the virus outbreak, and ChinaAid is calling on world leaders and members of Congress in America to demand her unconditional release.
