NOS News•
Fang Bin, the man who was one of the first to document the repercussions of the Corona outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan, was released after three years in prison. This was reported by BBC and Radio Free Asia.
In early 2020, Fang films how a hospital in his hometown has become overcrowded. He also counted the number of body bags stacked outside the hospital.
At that time, there was no official information in China about Corona. Fang’s video, which he posted on YouTube, has attracted a lot of attention at home and abroad. It is believed that the Corona pandemic started in Wuhan.
Fang was arrested after uploading the video, but was soon released. After he posted a video criticizing the Chinese government about a week later, he was arrested again. He has been missing since then.
prison sentence
It is now revealed that Wang has been secretly sentenced to three years in prison. He was released last Sunday. Sources told the BBC he was in good health.
Fang wasn’t the only citizen journalist to cover the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and then disappear. This also happened to Zhang Zhan, after she blogged about the events. Zhang was sentenced to four years in prison.
China reporter Shurd Din Das spoke with friends of Zhang in January 2021, nearly a year after the arrest. The report also shows the fragment containing the body bags, which Fang photographed:
Chinese citizen journalists spoke to the world about Corona: Where are they now?