China: pro-democracy HRD harassed for sharing news on COVID-19, his social media account frozen
Event- Country
- China
- Initial Date
- Feb 2, 2020
- Event Description
Over the past month, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has marshalled the country’s public security apparatus to track down and detain known activists and ordinary citizens who have shared information about the coronavirus outbreak, provided on-the-ground updates from the epicenter, or reflected upon the epidemic’s implications for China’s governance model.
But parts of the regime have also gone on the offensive against its political enemies more broadly, raising new questions about where party leaders’ priorities lie during a public health crisis and how far they will go to maintain their hold on power.
Muzzling Sources of Independent Information
The disappearance of three Chinese citizen journalists who had been live-streaming updates from Wuhan has drawn international attention. The three men — businessman Fang Bin, lawyer Chen Qiushi, and former journalist Li Zehua — had separately recorded and disseminated video reports from inside the locked-down city, its hospitals, and its quarantine centers. Over the past month, all three have vanished into some form of custody, detained by police or possibly quarantined despite their reported good health.
While these cases are widely known, in part due to the men’s international contacts and the potency of their videos, there are many more like them. Media reports, updates from human rights groups, and posts on local government websites from the past month indicate that similar measures are being taken by authorities far from Wuhan. Tan Zuoren, an online activist and former political prisoner in Sichuan province, received multiple visits by police and had his account on the WeChat social media platform frozen.
- Impact of Event
- 1
- Gender of HRD
- Man
- Violation
- Intimidation and Threats
- Rights Concerned
- #COVID-19
- Internet freedom
- Online
- Right to healthy and safe environment
- Right to privacy
- HRD
- Pro-democracy defender
- Perpetrator-State
- Police
- Source
- Monitoring Status
- Pending
- Event Location
Latitude: 30.69782768938287
Longitude: 104.05260701221633
- Event Location
- Summary for Publications
On 2 February 2020, Tan Zuoren, pro-democracy HRD, was visited by the police and had his social media (WeChat) account frozen after sharing news on COVID-19 outbreak in Chengdu, China.