A Chinese citizen journalist who uploaded coronavirus reports from Wuhan onto social media to criticise the city's handling of the outbreak has been arrested, according to reports.
The Shanghai resident Zhang Zhan, reportedly to be 40, was allegedly removed by police on suspicion of 'picking quarrels and provoking trouble', a broad-brush charge often used against activists.
She is believed to be the fourth Chinese citizen reporter to have vanished or been detained after posting dispatches from Wuhan during the COVID-19 outbreak.
The news comes as Chinese officials claimed that Beijing's fresh coronavirus cluster linked to a wholesale market was 'largely under control'.
Ms Zhang, who is originally from the north-western province of Shaanxi, had been critical of the Communist Party before the pandemic.
Last year, she was detained by the police, also on suspicion of 'picking quarrels and provoking trouble', after showing her support to pro-democracy Hong Kong protesters, according to a Chinese website which publishes updates about activists.
'Picking quarrels and provoking trouble' is a vaguely defined charge often used by Chinese authorities to target activists and dissidents, which carries a prison sentence of up to five years.
It is said the independent journalist arrived in Wuhan around February 1 to report on the coronavirus outbreak.
According to Ms Zhang's YouTube channel, she visited some of the most sensitive places in Wuhan at the height of the city's COVID-19 outbreak, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, crematoriums and hospitals.
In one clip uploaded on February 25, one man told Ms Zhang that he had just seen a crematorium van transporting corpses from Wuhan Wuchang Hospital. 'It's too scary,' the man is heard saying while standing outside the medical facility.
In five videos released the next day, she appeared to film the exterior of the tightly guarded Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was at the centre of startling theories that the virus escaped from there. The institute was surrounded by high-voltage electric fences and run by the military, Ms Zhang claimed.
She also captured how one crematorium was allegedly working overnight in mid-February, thought to be burning the bodies of COVID-19 victims.
In addition, the Hubei Provincial People's Hospital seemed to be packed with patients on March 1 when official figures claimed that the number of daily infections had dropped sharply.
It is alleged that Ms Zhang was 'forced to disappear' by authorities in Wuhan on May 14 and formally arrested in Shanghai the next day.
The news was reported by various news outlets, including Radio Free Asia and The Times. Her father told South China Morning Post that he was notified by police of her daughter's arrest on Friday.
Before Ms Zhang, three other citizen journalists had vanished for publishing reports about Wuhan's epidemic on international social media outlets.
Chen Qiushi, 34, was last heard from on February 6, and his whereabouts are unknown. Fang Bin, a businessman, also disappeared in early February, and is believed to have been taken into state custody. Li Zehua, 25, disappeared in late February and re-appearing in late April.
China has reportedly harassed, threatened and silenced multiple citizens who vowed to hold the government responsible for its perceived missteps in dealing with the new coronavirus outbreak.
One civil servant, Tan Jun, is said to have been interrogated and gagged by the police after filing the country's first lawsuit against the provincial government of Hubei for 'causing unprecedented losses' to its people's lives and properties.
Other grieving Wuhan residents were allegedly hassled, intimidated and hushed by authorities after planning to draw up petitions against officials over their response to the health crisis, which has killed more than 477,000 worldwide.
Li Wenliang, an eye doctor in Wuhan, was given severe oral warnings by his boss and police officers after sending a message onto social media to warn other medics of a 'SARS-like' disease. The 34-year-old later died of COVID-19 after contracting it from a patient.
Ren Zhiqiang, an outspoken Chinese Communist Party critic and millionaire property tycoon, was detained after he penned an essay fiercely critical of Xi's response to the outbreak, calling the leader 'a clown'.
Also, three Beijing-based internet activists have disappeared and are likely in detention for saving backup copies of censored coronavirus news stories online, according to a relative.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
