We, the undersigned press freedom and human rights organisations, strongly condemn the Chinese government’s ongoing arbitrary detention of journalist, human rights defender and former lawyer Zhang Zhan, on the fifth anniversary of her arrest.
Zhang is an outspoken journalist, and one of many Chinese citizens who are imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of the press and expression. Zhang Zhan was first detained on 14 May 2020 after she travelled to the city of Wuhan to courageously report on the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, documenting overflowing hospitals, empty shops, and families of victims and independent journalists being harassed by the authorities. She is currently being persecuted for supporting pro-democracy activist Zhang Pancheng, and reporting on human rights violations in the country.
At the beginning of March 2025, non-governmental government (NGO) sources confirmed that Zhang will soon be tried on the charge of ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’, a charge often used by Chinese authorities to suppress journalists, writers and human rights defenders. The date of her trial is still unknown, as she remains detained in the Pudong Detention Center in Shanghai, facing an additional up to five years in prison if convicted.
Zhang Zhan was apprehended by the police on 28 August 2024, only three months after completion of an earlier four-year sentence under the same charge, while travelling to her hometown in the Shaanxi province in northwest China. In the weeks leading up to this incident, Zhang kept reporting on the harassment of activists in China on her social media accounts.
Her first detention was deemed arbitrary under international human rights law by the United Nation’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in a 2021 opinion. In a November 2024 letter to the Chinese government, nine UN Special Procedures mandates raised lengthy concerns about patterns of repression against Zhang Zhan, alongside 17 other human rights defenders, requesting the government take measures to prevent any irreparable damage to life and personal integrity, and halt the violations of her human rights. The government’s three-line response on Zhang Zhan’s status merely asserted that ‘her legitimate rights and interests have been fully protected’.
China remains one of the most repressive countries for freedom of speech and press, ranks 178th out of 180 in the 2025 Reporters without Borders (RSF)’s World Press Freedom Index, and is the world’s leading jailer of journalists and writers, according to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists, RSF, and PEN America.
The charge of ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’ was used against over 100 individuals for peacefully exercising or defending human rights between 2019 and 2024. Chinese authorities often used this crime to justify political persecution of human rights defenders, including journalists. In March 2024, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, also called on the Chinese government to revise the ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’ provision and release all human rights defenders, lawyers, and others detained under that charge. In detention, Zhang Zhan has engaged in intermittent hunger strikes to protest her arbitrary detention. In 2021 she was twice hospitalised due to severe malnutrition and a rapid deterioration of her health.
In January 2025, Zhang Zhan again re-started her hunger strike in protest of her second arrest. In response, detention centre personnel have subjected her to forced-feeding through a gastric tube – a practice that may amount to torture or other ill-treatment, in violation of the Convention against Torture ratified by China in 1988. Her lawyer has been allowed to meet with her but has been under pressure from the authorities not to disclose the case details publicly.
Despite the relentless calls from the international community to immediately release Zhang Zhan, the Chinese government continues to ignore the urgency of the matter. Yet, the restrictions against journalists or anyone who speaks out against the abuse of the government has tightened drastically, despite the right to freedom of speech and press being guaranteed by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as by Article 35 of the Chinese Constitution. Zhang’s prosecution is being used as a warning to others who might challenge the government’s propaganda machine.
Zhang Zhan’s arbitrary detention is a mockery of China’s international human rights obligations to ensure humane prison conditions. Furthermore, Zhang Zhan has committed no internationally recognisable offence, but has been subjected to harsh punishment for reporting on facts and exercising her right to freedom of expression.
We urge the Chinese government to:
- Immediately and unconditionally release Zhang Zhan and put an end to all acts of harassment towards her;
- Guarantee Zhang Zhan’s safety, psychological well-being and access to adequate and independent medical care;
- Allow her unhindered access to her family members and lawyer of her choosing;
- Submit its state report to the Committee against Torture (CAT), which is over five years overdue, including providing information on the conditions in secret detention and Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location, and providing concrete legislative measures and data about the implementation of previous CAT recommendations concerning these practices;
- Put an end to systemic crackdown on civil society, including harassment, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary detention of journalists, writers, and human rights defenders.
We urge UN bodies and officials, including High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and governments concerned with human rights in China to:
- Increase support to journalists, writers, and human rights defenders across and from China;
- Advocate for the releases of arbitrarily detained journalists, writers, and human rights defenders, including using high-level meetings to publicly call for the release of specific individuals by name;
- Condition international law enforcement interactions and rule of law cooperation with the Chinese government on the government’s dropping all charges and quashing all convictions against those wrongfully detained for peacefully exercising or advocating human rights, including press freedom and the right to information.
Signatories:
ARTICLE 19
Alliance for Citizens Rights
Amnesty International
Association of Taiwan Journalists (ATJ)
Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association (CamboJA)
China Aid Association (ChinaAid)
China Change
China Dissent Network
Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD)
Coalition For Women In Journalism
Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
Den norske Tibet komité
Dialogue China
European Values Center for Security Policy Taiwan Office
Fortify Rights
Frontline Defenders
Georgetown Center for Asian Law
Gerakan Media Merdeka (GERAMM)
Global Alliance for Tibet & Persecuted Minorities
Grupo de Apoio ao Tibete-Portugal
Hong Kong Committee in Norway
Hong Kong Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights in China (HRIC)
Humanitarian China
Independent Chinese PEN Center
Index on Censorship
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), within the framework of the Observatory
for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
International Tibet Network
International Women’s Media Foundation
l’ACAT-France
Legal Initiatives for Vietnam (LIV)
No Business With Genocide
PEN America
PEN International
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
Safeguard Defenders
Santa Barbara Friends of Tibet
Scottish Hongkongers
Solidarité Chine
Students for a Free Tibet
Taiwan Association of Human Rights (TAHR)
Taiwan Foreign Correspondents Club (TFCC)
The Human Rights Foundation
The Rights Practice
The Tibet Support Committee, Denmark
Tibet Action Institute
Tibet Solidarity
Tibet Support Group Ireland
Tibet Watch
Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP)
Vancouver Activists of Hong Kong (VAHK)
Vancouver Society in Support of Democratic Movement (VSSDM)
Victoria Hongkongers Association (VHKA)
Viet Tan
World Liberty Congress
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders